Prosecutors will prosecute the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) for injecting contaminated sewage into the Borgsweer gas field in Groningen. The NAM is suspected of having added substances to the wastewater without permission to discharge these substances.

The public prosecutor’s office cannot yet say which substances are involved. According to prosecutors, one of these substances could be mercury. This is contained in the effluent from the natural gas refinery in the North Sea, where NAM is drilling for gas.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, this is an environmental crime because potentially dangerous substances end up in the ground without permission. NAM is said to have discharged these substances at Borgsweer in the last twelve years.

uncertainty about the danger

According to the public prosecutor, there are currently no indications that the discharge of waste water poses a risk to people and the environment and/or that this type of discharge increases the risk of earthquakes.

The case came to light after extensive investigations by the police and the Inspectorate for Human Environment and Transport (ILT). and the State Mining Inspectorate (SodM). Prosecutors plan to bring the case to court next year. NAM plans to pump sewage into the soil of Twente in 2023.

NAM regrets that a criminal investigation has been opened and says it will not be able to respond substantively to the prosecutor’s decision until a later date.