Lithium mine Lithium mine: Salaya trusts that the mining company will withdraw the resource

The mayor of Cáceres, Luis Salaya, has trusted that the company that promotes the lithium mine in the Valdeflórez area will withdraw the appeal it filed against the denial of the investigation permit by the Junta de Extremadura to project a pit mine open, and has advanced that, “in the coming weeks”, there will be new contacts between those responsible for Extremadura News Energies and the local government to continue dealing with this matter.

Salaya has insisted that “it is crucial for the city” that the open-pit mine project “is completely settled”, for which he expects a “gesture of goodwill” from the company, which would be the withdrawal of the administrative dispute. “You have to know how to lose but you also have to know how to win and the city also has to assimilate that this first battle is very close to winning it,” he said in statements to the media collected by EP before participating this Thursday in an act in the complex cultural san francisco

“We are looking forward to them making the decision definitively and for a period to open in which this project can be presented and then we can assess whether we like it or not,” stressed the mayor, who has advanced that there have been no more contacts with the company after the meeting that took place on May 25, but has announced that “the logical thing” is that in the coming weeks there will be because “we do not want to be opaque in this.”

Salaya hopes that the subsidiary company of Infinity Lithium “confirms” the withdrawal of that appeal, something that was discussed at the meeting two weeks ago and in which they “did not” guarantee that the judicial process would be dismissed, for which reason the councilor has insisted that confidence in the promoter “is going to be very low” until the appeal is withdrawn.

“It is crucial for the city because with only a one percent chance that an open-pit mine will end up prospering, it is a risk that we are not willing to assume in any case,” he asserted, while insisting that he would not You can “advance on any track” until it is confirmed that it will not be open.

In this regard, he referred to the statements he made after the meeting with Extremadura News Energies in which he pointed out that if the mine is underground the damage would be minor, and he insisted that “if the project is open pit, in no scenario will to coexist that project with my activity as mayor”, alluding to what he said on March 26, 2021 when he announced that if the planned mining project was authorized then in the Mountain he would resign as mayor.

«Despite everything and despite the tension of the last few days in this matter, I am optimistic that the open-pit project can be considered settled and, if we consider it settled, we enter a stage in which we can discuss and assess , and in which I think we must avoid exaggerating because an underground mine is not the same as an open pit mine, which was to sentence the future of the city and a terrible option, “he concluded.