The deputy for Santa Cruz de Tenerife Alberto Rodríguez, of the United Confederal Parliamentary Group Podemos-En Comú Podem-Galicia en Común, has registered an initiative before the Table of the Congress of Deputies to know both the information and the measures that he plans to carry out the central government in the face of hydrocarbon spills in recent weeks on the coast of Tenerife.
In a statement, Podemos Canarias recalls that since the end of August it has been detected that the parameters of the presence of the bacterium e.coli have increased on the island’s coasts, without its origin being known with certainty so far. Several municipalities such as Granadilla and Santa Cruz de Tenerife have prohibited bathing in part of their coastline when detecting the increase in these parameters.
“This situation can lead to serious and irreversible ecological and social damage. The urgent need to achieve an optimal control of discharges and the adequate treatment of wastewater constitutes a priority for the ecological transition, environmental sustainability, the conservation of biodiversity, the improvement of the health and well-being of the Canarian society. . For this reason, it is the obligation of the public powers to give immediate and appropriate responses to these problems, ”says the Canarian deputy.
In the parliamentary initiative, the training highlights that the cleaning of Canarian waters is of crucial importance “in the fragile environmental sustainability of the Archipelago, in its economic development and in the various activities that are developed, in addition to contributing to the identity of the islands ”, Adds Rodríguez.
Rodríguez asks the Government if it has “any investigation or exhaustive report on the risks and detected episodes of marine pollution caused by the bacteria e.coli and other pollutants derived from the discharges that have affected the islands, especially Tenerife in recent weeks. ”.
In this sense, the deputy asks to know “if the entities or persons responsible for these discharges have been identified, as well as the controls that are established to avoid pollutants in the sea, the planned corrective measures and the mechanisms to demand responsibility for the damage caused by marine pollution ”.
Podemos Canarias points out in the note that these uncontrolled discharges and the inadequate treatment of wastewater generated by the population and by economic activities represent an important source of pollution that affects not only the quality of water resources and the loss of biodiversity, but also to the physical and mental health of the Canarian people.
In addition, the training highlights that Tenerife is still a long way from complying with the regulations for the adequate treatment of its wastewater and this problem is extensive, to a greater or lesser degree, to the rest of the islands of the Archipelago. At present, both Tenerife and seven other towns in the State continue to fail to comply with the regulations that guarantee the proper treatment of their wastewater.
Podemos Canarias also recalls that the European Court of Justice condemned Spain in 2018 to pay the largest fine in its history (32.7 million euros) due to the deficit of the treatment plants and the European Union also applied a penalty of twenty million for every year of non-compliance with this directive.
