Effective implementation of the environmental decision by the Turów Mine
The Turów mine continuously fulfils its obligations under the environmental decision - issued by the General Director of Environmental Protection - by implementing a number of investments and pro-environmental activities limiting its impact on the nearby areas of Poland, Czechia and Germany. Approximately PLN 56.6 million has been spent to date on all of the mine's activities resulting from the environmental decision.
An environmental decision is an administrative decision whose task is to shape a given activity in such a way that it affects the environment as little as possible. In the course of the Turów Mine's efforts to obtain an environmental decision valid until 2044, in accordance with Polish and European law the mine cooperated intensively with the Czech and German sides on the report on the mine's impact on the environment. As part of the agreement of the content of the environmental report, numerous meetings were held with the Czech and German sides, including the ones with the participation of residents of border areas. The Turów Mine also answered several thousand questions - mainly from environmental organisations. Both Czechia and Germany have agreed to certain measures and investments minimising the impact of the Turów Mine on nearby areas by signing transboundary agreement protocols in 2019. The conditions contained in the transboundary protocols were directly transferred into the environmental decision.
The Turów mine complies with the provisions of the environmental decision on an ongoing basis through the implementation of investments and pro-environmental measures limiting its impact on the neighbouring border areas. These include activities in the area of water protection, air protection, noise protection, reclamation and modern technologies for environmental protection. To date, the Turów Mine has allocated approximately PLN 56.6 million for the implementation of the environmental decision. One of the investments already completed is an underground anti-filtration screen built to limit the potential impact of the Turów opencast on the Czech water resources. Tests on the effectiveness of the underground barrier confirm, that it is fully functional and effective. In control boreholes located to the south of the mine, i.e. on the side of the Polish-Czech border, increases in the groundwater table level by even up to 4.64 metres have been recorded.
The Turów mine is not the only facility that can affect the water table in the Czech border areas. The sensitivity of the water intake in the Czech village of Uhelna depends, among others, on atmospheric recharge, the maintenance of the exploitation regime, i.e. the amount of pumped water in relation to the abundance of the intake, and the drainage of its resources by the Grabštejn gravel mine in Czechia, adjacent to the intake. Data from this facility - so important for updating the hydrogeological model of the area - were not fully provided to the Polish side despite numerous requests. The aforementioned atmospheric recharge, or to be more precise, the lack of it due to drought, is a key issue in an independent study by the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management of 2020, prepared on the basis of a 30-year observation period of the border area with Czechia, including the Turów Mine.
In addition, noise and dust screens are being built, modern environmental monitoring systems are being installed, the belt conveyor pulleys are being replaced with the low-noise ones and new plantings are being carried out on an ongoing basis, thanks to which the forest cover rate in the Bogatynia Municipality has increased from 27 to 30 per cent.
More about the investments and activities carried out by the Turów Mine in individual environmental components as part of the environmental decision can be read at: https://kwbturow.pgegiek.pl/decyzja-srodowiskowa.
