Leppävirta challenges state over abandoned mine cleanup bill

Leppävirta municipality has taken legal action to avoid paying an estimated 1.6 million euros to clean up a heavily contaminated abandoned nickel mine, Yle reports. The municipality says the state should organise and fund the work.

The Särkiniemi mine in Leppävirta, North Savo, operated from 2007 to 2009. Two companies that ran the mine subsequently went bankrupt, leaving behind serious environmental damage.

A narrow road through the forest leads to the former open-pit mine, bordered by unusual yellowish crushed rock. The surroundings of a small water-filled pit are rust-coloured, with little undergrowth. The turquoise water appears to contain no signs of life.

The mine’s environmental problems emerged so late that no one was held responsible. Finn Nickel began mining nickel at Särkiniemi in 2007 and went bankrupt two years later. Vulcan Resources Ltd later bought the company’s bankruptcy estate but also eventually went bankrupt.

It later emerged that the mine had not complied with the conditions of its environmental permit. Finn Nickel left behind, among other things, piles of waste and built a nine-kilometre road near the mine without permission. Police investigated the matter as environmental degradation, but any possible offence had already become time-barred.

Municipality says state failed in its oversight

Leppävirta’s dispute with the state began late last year, when the municipality proposed that the contaminated soil be cleaned up using state funds. Authorities rejected the proposal, and the municipality then appealed to the Permit and Supervision Agency. That appeal did not succeed.

Leppävirta has now appealed the mine’s cleanup arrangements to the Eastern Finland Administrative Court. It is asking the court to order the state to organise and pay for the work. The court has not yet said when it will begin processing the case.

Municipal manager Matti Raatikainen, who began in the role in 2009 when Finn Nickel went bankrupt, says the situation is unreasonable. Leppävirta has about 9,000 residents, and paying for the cleanup would create significant financial difficulties. It could also delay major school investments, he says.

“It is difficult to accept, based on a general sense of justice, that Leppävirta’s residents should pay the bill because someone failed to do their job at some point,” Raatikainen said.

The municipality blames inadequate official oversight for the damage. Jussi-Pekka Järvinen, an environmental chief inspector at the Permit and Supervision Agency, said the state, through the North Savo ELY Centre, had carried out appropriate oversight at the time.

Järvinen said the authorities had instead been deliberately misled by the mining company, which had provided incorrect or incomplete information.

Vesa-Jussi Penttilä, who served as Finn Nickel’s chief executive, rejects the allegations. He said the mine had operated according to its environmental permit and the mining law in force at the time. He also denied that the company had given false information to oversight authorities.