Up to a thousand people gathered between 17 and 19 April at a protest camp against keeping the sodium and potassium salt mines in operation in the Bages county, in the province of Barcelona. The reason? The national and international fallout caused by their owner, Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL), whose Iberian branch is known as Iberpotash and which has managed the mines in the municipalities of Sallent, Balsareny, Vilafruns and Súria since their privatisation in 1998.
Dozens of long-standing local platforms, such as Montasalat, have for years denounced the pollution generated in this area. Over two decades, the company has piled up mountains of waste that are believed to have leached into the Llobregat, one of the main rivers running through the region, after using tens of thousands of litres of water in an area that suffers recurrent droughts.
