Water quality

Sources of discharges (A_10)

The water pollution hotspots at the port or ports by order of relevance⁵ are:

The main cause of the poorer water quality of the port are upsteam discharges in rivers and streams, with the acid drainage from the mines considered as such. An inventory and characterisation of the different water discharge and pollution hotspots of the sport were carried out. The water quality was continuously characterised during the 2020 maintenance dredging campaign.

⁵ The order of relevance is allocated from 1 to 4, with 1 being the highest. NA, when Not Applicable.

Measures adopted by Huelva Port Authority to control discharges (A_11)

The measures implemented to improve and control the water quality at the Port of Huelva are:

• Collecting water on the wharfs and improving the surface of the Ing. J. Gonzalo and C. de Palos wharves.
• Regular sediment and water quality characterisation campaigns.
• Mandatory rules and applying a penalty system.
• Best practices guides and voluntary codes of conduct.
• Specific technical instructions to load/unload solid bulk.
• Direct supervision on the wharves by Port Authority technicians.
• Setting up of areas for equipment cleaning and maintenance.
• Improvements to managing runoff (collecting, channelling, prefilter wells, storm tanks, etc.).
• Specific environmental requirements regarding waste water and runoff management when awarding concessions.
• Environmental requirements regarding equipment maintenance and cleaning in service specification and award terms and conditions. Best practices agreements.
• Approval of Internal Maritime Plans (IMP) as emergency response to marine pollution.
• Better own resources for controlling accidental marine pollution.

All the binding environmental authorisations are reviewed during the audits for the environmental best practices subsidies. Furthermore, the Environmental Police play an important role in controlling all those requirements.

As particularly noteworthy, during 2020 Huelva Port Authority continued to work on a project to renew and improve the sewage network on the Ingeniero Juan Gonzalo Wharf, which in turn will lead to improvements to its paved surface. This will help to optimise cleaning and minimise dust emissions as the result of machinery and lorry traffic.

The approximate total budget for the project will be €28 million.

Water quality characterisation projects (A_12)

During 2020⁶ campaigns were conducted to monitor the water quality in the Service Area, related to the dredging work. The type of parameters measured in those characterisation campaigns are: dissolved oxygen, pH, redox potential, conductivity, temperature, salinity, turbidity, suspended solids, total nitrogen, phosphates, oxidizable organ carbon and metals (mercury, cadmium, lead, copper, zinc, chrome, nickel and arsenic).

⁶ With regard to the EIS Ruling of 22 January 2018, of the General Directorate of Quality and Environmental Assessment and the Natural Environment.

Sewage network and wastewater treatment (A_13)

At the Port of Huelva’s Service Area, there is a large industrial area whose facilities have its own sewage network that is connected to the municipal one. As regards the rest of the port use area, there is likewise a large sewage network that collects the wastewater and takes it to the Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plan to be treated.

The detailed percentages are as follows:

⁷ Those percentages refer to the service area of the port with facilities and where port operations are performed or may be performed. The surface area of the service area that is saltmarsh and with no facilities has not been included in that calculation.

Runoff waters treatment (A_14)

As regards runoff waters, the degree of its collection is indicated below:

The storm tank to collect runoff waters on the Ingeniero Juan Gonzalo Wharf is currently underway.

⁸ It should be pointed out that these percentages refer to the service area in which activities are carried out or may be carried out. They exclude the portion of the service area taken up by marshland, with no facilities.

Schematic overview of the technical resources used to clean the body of water and weight of floating items collected in the year (A_15)

In July 2018, a new contract was signed for the beaconing maintenance and cleaning up of floating items.

The cleaning up of floating items from the port’s water surface during 2020 is detailed in the following table:

• Nº of vessels: Contracted services with C-07 PH Ordinary Procedure
• Cleaning frequency: Presence of floating items
• Weight of the waste collected in Tm: Approx. 115Kg.

Activation of the Internal Maritime Plan (IMP) (A_16)

^* NB: Pursuant to the procedures established in the Huelva Port Authority’s IMP, activation of the IMP for any concession entails activation of the Port Authority’s IMP, or at least its alert phase.

^** Activation of the APH IMP in Emergency Phase, Response Level 1.

Volume of wastewater discharges generated by the Port Authority or discharges by manifolds of which the Port Authority is the owner, broken down by types (A_17)

The activities of the Huelva Port Authority that generates wastewater discharges from:

• Offices, Levante Wharf: ARU (Urban wastewater)
• South Wharf: ARU (Urban wastewater)
• Ingeniero Juan Gonzalo Wharf: ARI (Industrial wastewater)

The destination of that wastewater:

• Municipal manifold: Offices, Levante Wharf (Rain)
• Septic tank: South Wharf (Offices)
• Own treatment: Envisaged at Ingeniero Juan Gonzalo Wharf

Only rainwater ends up in the river estuary. There are different clean rainwater points in the service zone, which does not require treatment and there are no devices to measure flow or volume.