The environmental organizations have celebrated the response of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning, led by José Antonio Valbuena, to the report requested by the regional department of Public Works and Transport, in which it is indicated that the Declaration of Environmental Impact of the Fonsalía port project expired on December 19, 2019.
As reported yesterday by DIARIO DE AVISOS, the letter, sent on August 5 by the Deputy Minister for the Fight against Climate Change and Energy, Miguel Ángel Pérez, specifies that “the environmental impact statements published prior to the entry into force of this Law will lose its validity and will cease to produce the effects that are proper to it if the execution of the projects or activities had not begun within a period of six years from the entry into force of this Law. Therefore, they have already elapsed. six years from 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 Environmental Impact Statement under study ”.
Farther and farther
Eustaquio Villalba, spokesman for the Tenerife Association of Friends of Nature (ATAN), expressed to this newspaper his satisfaction with the statement of the department headed by Valbuena. “It is great news and we have celebrated it a lot at ATAN, we are all very happy because it means that the port of Fonsalía is increasingly far away,” said the historic environmental leader, who considers “a relief to think that the Environmental Impact report What will have to be done must take into account the reality of the environmental richness of the area, especially as a passage area for mammals, as well as the species that live there ”.
In Villalba’s opinion, “what was done in his day was a report from a party that does not correspond to current reality or current scientific reports that have been done seriously and that have had the support of the University of La Laguna, who said the exact opposite ”.
Regarding the recent pronouncements of different public officials and political organizations against the construction of the port in the municipality of Guía de Isora, Eustaquio Villalba believes that it is the product of the “avalanche of arguments against and the lack of arguments in favor”, which leads him to assure that “many have had to back down because the indefensible cannot be defended.” In this sense, he stressed that the opposition to the port of Fonsalía has highlighted the “lack of reasons” to carry out the project.
“They have nothing to rely on to justify six ports, three of them large commercial infrastructures, along 35 kilometers of coastline, and the economic motivations they allege are absurd, because winning 10 minutes in a trip to La Gomera, El Hierro or La Palma it is insignificant and in no case does it justify this enormous investment and the great impact it causes, ”said the ATAN spokesperson.
