The Iceland Nature Conservation Association is challenging Landsvirkjun, Iceland’s largest power company, to inform the Icelandic National Planning Agency that they plan on reassessing the environmental impact of their power station Bjarnarflag on the ecosystem Mývatn and surrounding area.
In an open letter to Landsvirkjun posted on their website the Association writes “there have been serious suggestions that Bjarnarflag can cause great harm to the ecosystem of Lake Mývatn. For example, it is not clear how much cooling can be expected to take place in the groundwater flowing into the lake with the proposed energy output.”
The letter also refers to an October interview with Hörður Arnarson, CEO of Landsvirkjun, that implied that the state-owned company had no intention of carrying out a re-evaluation of their plant’s environmental impact. Also in October the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention requested that the government investigate any threat to Lake Mývatn and the Laxá River posed by Bjarnarflag power station.
The Mývatn and Laxá river area are declared as wetlands of environmental importance under the Ramsar Convention, an “intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources” signed in Ramsar, Iran in 1971.
Related:
Environmental Agency Investigating Protection of Mývatn Area
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