The Chinese battery factory and the separator film plant will also place a significant burden on the environment of Debrecen.
Although several significant energy- and water-intensive plants will be established in Debrecen soon, which will threaten the population’s water supply, not a single resident of Debrecen showed up at the public hearing on the investments, reports Atlatszo.hu.
Referring to a recently completed impact assessment, the portal details that
the freshly licensed cathode material factory, for example, will hurt the environment with its water consumption and wastewater volume, in addition to using 220,000 tons of hazardous materials per year. However, the locals have little information about all of this. For example, not a single resident of Debrecen showed up at the public hearing about the mentioned plants because the municipality of Debrecen announced these events in such a way that almost no one could know about them.
We previously reported that CATL is building a battery factory in the Déli Ipari Park with almost 3,000 billion HUF. Several political parties are concerned about the city’s water resources. The Hajdú-Bihar branch of the LMP also initiated a referendum on the topic.
Upon hearing the news of the referendum, the city administration issued a statement without delay, in which it was written that
Debrecen has a significant water base. We planned the industrial development processes in consultation with the utility companies, taking into account the city’s features and possibilities. The city’s economy and the water needs of the population can be fully served. Debrecen’s annual industrial and residential water consumption was the highest in the mid-1980s. Today, the city’s annual water demand is less than half of its water consumption in the 1980s. Even during this dry period, there was no need to take any restrictive measures. […] Thanks to the first phase of the Civaqua program, Debrecen’s water management continues to improve its position. The city receives a water supply of 15,000 liters per minute (21,600 cubic meters per day). According to the plans, the second phase of the Civaqua program will triple this capacity. Debrecen’s water supply is ensured in the long term, even in addition to industrial development processes.
According to Atlatszo.hu, not only CATL but also the cathode material production plant of EcoPro Bm will impose a similar burden on the city. As they write,
EcoPro Global Hungary Kft. will produce 120,000 tons of cathode-active material annually, for which they will use lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum-oxide (NCA) technology. The construction has already received the necessary disaster protection and environmental use permit. Public hearings had to be held to issue the licenses. However, the municipality of Debrecen did not do much to ensure that the population was really informed about these events. […] The announcement of the public hearing held in the case of the hazardous plant was practically impossible to find on the municipality’s website: it was posted in the Info directory menu item, in the Publication and announcements sub-menu, under General announcements. So, only those who were looking for this news could find it.
Regardless, the municipality complied with the legal requirements, although no one showed up at the public hearing organized for 9 am (during working hours). According to the report requested by the investigative portal,
only representatives of the security report company, the authorities, and the local government took part in the hearing.
However, based on the impact assessment cited by the portal, several concerns arise:
Although the large-scale use of industrial water does not change the quality of the water, its quantity and quality can also deteriorate by tapping water resources below the surface. The factory’s planned daily industrial water consumption will be 2,800 cubic meters, of which 1,800 cubic meters are wastewater, and the remaining 1,000 cubic meters are evaporation loss. The natural gas demand of the plant is 2,200 cubic meters/hour. The operator must provide data on the emissions of 86 air-polluting point sources on the factory premises at appropriate intervals.
At the public hearing, there were a few questions regarding environmental impact. However, in response to the questions, it was said that according to Debrecen Water Works,
Hozzászólások