Sweden’s Lake among most polluted water bodies, cleanup planned by mining company

Ala Lombolo Lake in Kiruna is considered one of Sweden’s most polluted water bodies, Azernews reports.

Mercury deposits from an old dental clinic and the mining company LKAB, as well as over 17,000 munitions left by Swedish military forces in the 1950s, are found at the lake’s bottom.

Although the pollution occurred before 1969 and no one holds legal responsibility, LKAB has voluntarily decided to finance the cleanup to restore the lake’s status as a safe swimming area.

“Currently, the lake is not toxic, but the excessive nutrients and mercury combined in the sediment could pose an environmental risk, especially if disturbed,” said Liselott Olausson, head of LKAB’s environmental department.

The company plans to use specialized equipment to carefully remove the sediments. The material will then be processed on land, where water will be frozen to separate pollutants. Transporting the sediment will require nearly 400 trucks.

Cleanup operations are scheduled to begin by 2027, with the project’s exact cost yet to be determined.

According to Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket), there are over 85,000 polluted sites in the country, but only a small portion are water bodies, due to high research costs and technical challenges.