The Public Prosecution Service is visiting Tata Steel IJmuiden today with an investigation team. The visit is part of it investigation that the OM has set after the mass declaration against the company by lawyer Bénédicte Ficq on behalf of more than 1,100 people. She calls the visit of the investigation team from, among others, the forensic service and the environmental service ‘excellent’.
The 1,100 signatories of the declaration accuse Tata Steel and Harsco Metals of ‘having intentionally and unlawfully introduced or caused harmful substances to be introduced into the soil, air or surface water, with a possible risk to public health’. Harsco is the slag processing plant on the Tata Steel site.
The visit by the Public Prosecution Service should help determine whether the company will be prosecuted for this in the future. Today, the Public Prosecution Service wants to see with its own eyes the ins and outs of the steel company. It wants to ‘gain more insight into the steel production process and specifically into the operation of the coke and gas plants’.
To this end, it has brought along a team of all kinds of experts: the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) is there, the special investigation service of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (ILT-IOD) and DCMR Milieudienst Rijnmond, which normally monitors companies in and around the port area of Rotterdam controls.
Tata Steel confirms that the OM can be found on site all day today. “Basically, we have the research team on the floor all day. We show them around and show them what’s happening on our site. We expect them to come back again after today.”
According to lawyer Ficq, it can still be quite difficult to control a company like Tata Steel. “The Public Prosecution Service must still be taken by the hand, and that will be done by employees of the company. That indicates how much power Tata Steel has, they can determine what they can and cannot show. But that a team has been put together of all those different services is very good. That gives confidence.”
The Public Prosecution Service cannot yet say when it will make a decision on whether to prosecute Tata Steel.