Fonsalía is almost impossible. Thus it is understood, even from those who until a few days ago supported him in a stoic way, since it is official, as DIARIO DE AVISOS has learned, that for two weeks the Ministry of Public Works and Transport of the Government of the Canary Islands has on its table the Response to the report requested from the Ministry of Ecological Transition on the validity of the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) of the project called Puerto de Isora (Fonsalía), in Guía de Isora. The answer is overwhelming, the EIS granted on December 22, 2014 (under the 1990 law on the Prevention of Ecological Impact and a royal decree of 2008) has expired since December 19, 2019.
In the letter sent on August 5 by the Deputy Minister of the Fight against Climate Change and Energy, of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Miguel Ángel Pérez, to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, led by Sebastián Franquis, it is recalled that “the Environmental impact statements published prior to the entry into force of this Law will lose their validity and will cease to produce their own effects if the execution of the projects or activities had not begun within a maximum period of six years from the entry into force of this Law. In such cases, the promoter must start again the process of evaluating the environmental impact of the project in accordance with the provisions of this Law. Therefore, as of the current date, six years have already elapsed since the entry into force of Law 21/2013, of December 9, and therefore, the third section of the First DT operates, losing its validity the DIA under study ”.
It is the almost definitive stick to a project that has been in the drawers since the 90s. Now we must bear in mind that the previous environmental declaration was covered by the revised text of the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of projects, of 2008, which it was looser than the current one. If you wanted to redo an EIS with the 2013 standard, you would have few options to get ahead, since the requirements are now more stringent, in addition to the evidence that has been revealed from 2014 to the present, which has motivated these waters, located in the Rasca-Teno Special Conservation Area (ZEC), have been declared a cetacean sanctuary, one of the three in the entire planet.
It should be remembered that the Minister of Ecological Transition, José Antonio Valbuena, indicated two years ago, about to expire the Environmental Impact Declaration, that there were 25 environmental conditions that made the project unviable.
Even Casimiro Curbelo already sees Granadilla as an “alternative”
It is not known if it was because the matter was discussed in the last Governing Council or not, the truth is that Fonsalía was talked a lot throughout the past week, and from what is seen, it will continue to speak in this and in the next. Perhaps, as a consequence of this, there have been reactions such as that of Nueva Canarias in Tenerife, which, despite its favorable vote of the project in Parliament – everyone did it in favor, except Podemos -, chose to oppose it, and even the mayor de Arona was also positioned against (still a member of the PSOE, José Julián Mena did not hesitate to put his finger in the eye of the project and its defenders, in addition to wanting for his municipality a buried connection from the port to the highway and thus lighten traffic in Los Cristianos). Many of those who previously applauded the project or at least did not discuss it in public have begun, never better said, to abandon ship. But perhaps the most surprising message was that of Casimiro Curbelo, until just a few days ago, uncompromising with the possibility that Granadilla would be spoken of as an alternative to Los Cristianos and, therefore, the non-construction of Fonsalía. In Cope, he did not rule out that possibility, that of adapting the port of Granadilla, theoretically for industrial use, in view of the fact that Fonsalía appears to be a more unrealizable dream every day.
