Megadrug pit stinks of cat pee, now the groundwater is being cleaned

The drug pit was discovered by chance on March 23, 2021. Police were dismantling a cocaine laundry at the foot of the hill and a forest ranger discovered a hidden trapdoor in the adjacent forest. Below that was a pit with chemical waste.

The item from Omroep Brabant News after the discovery of the enormous drug pit:

Dunes
“I still find it bizarre that I am standing in an age-old drift dune,” said ranger and ‘discoverer’ Erik de Jonge of Brabants Landschap on Wednesday at the start of the cleaning operation. He speaks of a ‘horror’ with ‘dramatic consequences’ for nature.

After the discovery, everything was excavated: meters deep. Deer and hawks and other birds disappeared. Four hundred trees had to be cut down: “It will take a lifetime to restore that.”

More than six thousand cubic meters of soil is gone. Two thirds were dirty and were cleaned at the ATM in Moerdijk. A kind of crater eight meters deep remained. And a gigantic cost item; how much exactly, no one knows yet. The province of North Brabant and the government allocated money: millions. Also to prevent Brabants Landschap from getting into deep trouble. But it is and remains a headache.

Bright spot
“This is bad news for people, animals and plants,” Brabant deputy Hagar Roijackers said on Wednesday. She said she was happy with the steps that have been taken in and around the well. Moreover, she was able to report a small bright spot. The drinking water in the deeper layers is not affected. Thanks to a loam layer, it retains drug waste.

When the cleaning started more than a year ago, the well was still an off-limits area. On Wednesday, the media was allowed to walk around the well safely for the first time. A bulk of several meters of clean sand has already been dumped. The strange smell in the air is striking. A cat litter box smell or cat pee smell. Experts confirm that that is the pollution you smell.

Small factory
The sand has been tackled. Now six thousand cubic meters of polluted water. That is comparable to what is possible in two Olympic swimming pools. The groundwater is pumped up to a depth of eight meters at five places in the drug pit and transported via a pipe system to a small factory outside the pit.

In this specially built installation, the water is filtered and aerated and pumped back to the edges of the well. If any harmful substances remain, the soil can break them down itself.

Initially, this filtering takes place for three months. Then there is a rest period of three months. Experts then continue to test the groundwater and continue purifying it for as long as necessary.

The drug waste in Halsteren consists of a cocktail of solvents from a cocaine laundry. That lab was at the foot of the hill, barely twenty meters from the drug den. Colombians processed smuggled coke in that drug lab.

The drugs were dissolved in products. It is not known exactly which one, but it is often cardboard, textile or coal. Recovery is done by treating it with hazardous substances such as acetone, toluene, benzene and oil. After use, they are discharged or dumped in barrels.

Claim
The police have arrested several people who they suspect are behind the drug depot in Halsteren. So far there is insufficient evidence that they caused that pollution. The province would like to claim the costs from those suspects, but if there is no evidence then nothing can be obtained; much to the frustration of all parties involved.

There are more discharge points in Brabant, but they are a lot smaller. The following applies to all discharge locations: remediation will take years and almost five million euros are available for this. Other discharge locations are:

There are two places where cleaning is also prepared: in Baarle-Nassau (Veldbraak) and in Nieuwendijk (Zandsteeg).

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