Mining
Gravel mining is a contradictory reality. We know the necessity of the commodity for the construction.
But when this activity is made illegally, without environmental controls, impacts can affect the balance and the natural values of the large territory.
The exploitation always causes an important alteration in the landscape and above the natural resources of the area (soil, water, vegetation…)
CONSEQUENCES:
1- About the water:
Spills of mud to the river.
The gravel mining pours to river clays, sands and chippings. The consequences of pouring tons of diary mud is the invisibility of bed bottom. And if there aren’t floods the bottom compacts itself and the animals die.
It is an illegal phenomenon but this is practised by a lot of people. Sometimes the spills of mud have rests of the mortar, when the installation goes together with the fabrication of concrete.
Evaporation of aquifers:
The exploitation under water table level exposes the aquifers forming small lakes that the people leave without protection during a lot of years. This causes the evaporation of water. It causes lot of problems because of the deficits of water.
Pollution of aquifers:
When the extraction is left we can see the small lake with varied spills coming from industrial state, these companies use the small lakes as spaces to pour the rubble and provoke the impoverish of subsoil.
2- About soil and vegetation
Destruction of vegetation
All the mining exploitations need of the previous destruction of the vegetation of surface. This cleaning-up supposes the elimination of big areas of trees in the last year.
Loss of the organic soil
The people sell the first layers of soil (the most fertile) to build and provoke a damage in the quality of soils.
3- Problems of personal safety
Fall and loosening
Some exploitations don’t have fences and it supposes a danger for poachers and other people that live nearby.
Dangerous traffic.
The lorries that circulate on the road without protection of freight and loosening of material have caused some serious accidents and windscreens breaks.
Other problems are: dust and noise, visual impact and destructions of paleontological and arqueological rest.
Mª Ángeles Gómez Gómez
Alba Mª Jiménez Jiménez
Mª del Carmen Sánchez Vazquez