«There is a work of one million euros, which is already finished, tested and ready to be put into operation, but we cannot use it because the municipal government of Los Silos does not sign the necessary agreement. It is a three-way agreement that has the approval of the Tenerife Island Water Council (CIATF) and the Garachico Town Hall, but Los Silos does not sign, so the discharges and contamination are maintained “, criticizes Javier Rodríguez Medina. “The solution could be in operation since April, but five months have passed and we are still the same,” he laments.
“There is a platform that rejects discharges into the sea, but nevertheless does not speak out against the discharges that are currently taking place. It seems that the only objective is to impose a type of purification, not to avoid pollution of the sea, ”says Rodríguez.
The counselor announces that This situation of blockade has forced them to report to “the competent administrations and entities” Regarding the discharges: «We have already informed you of the situation we have with Los Silos because there have been many months of waiting for the signing of an agreement. The solution exists and there is a part that does not sign. Garachico does want to end the dumping into the sea, so we are going to try to find a temporary solution, through tanker trucks. This, deep down, is not desirable because we have a structural and definitive solution and we are going to have to apply a system that is neither sustainable nor efficient ”.
Despite the fact that the Cabildo trusts less and less that the Silense mayor, Macarena Fuentes (CC), signs the agreement to enable the transfer and treatment of wastewater from Garachico in Los Silos, Javier Rodríguez insists that «we expect a change of attitude because it would not be logical and could have consequences ». CIATF has begun to carry out capacity tests to determine how many trucks will be needed to remove the wastewater generated every day by the almost 5,000 inhabitants of Garachico (see exploded view).
In Tenerife there are 31 municipalities and, for now, at least 28 have a solution proposed for proper management and reuse of its wastewater, “with the exception of Isla Baja.” Javier Rodríguez points out that there are municipalities, such as Los Silos and Buenavista, that have opted for a type of extensive, or natural, purification “that have the obligation to develop these projects and to demonstrate that they are effective and sufficient for their localities.” In the case of Los Silos, Rodríguez understands that “it has fallen into inaction”, since the regional solution is blocked, but without progress in local proposals.
“The mayors of the island ask us for solutions to the problem of wastewater, they ask us for progress and we have proposed regional systems that solve it. We want to leave behind problems that have lasted more than 30 years thanks to the agreement signed with the state-owned company Acuaes, which provides for an investment of 170 million euros for the development of five large purification systems: Granadilla, Arona Este-San Miguel, Santiago del Teide and Guía de Isora, Acentejo and the network of collectors of the Valle de La Orotava ». The region of Isla Baja, in its commitment to a more fragmented extensive purification system, has voluntarily stayed out of a project that in 2017 did have the unanimous support of the region.
“CIATF can manage regional infrastructures, but when there are municipalities that reject them and bet on municipal solutions, then they have to assume them. In 1996 there were 62 treatment plants in Tenerife and that system failed miserably. The municipalities still have their treatment plants, but the vast majority do not work, they are obsolete or, directly, they became hardware stores from which parts were being removed. A sewage treatment plant requires professional maintenance and management, and respectfully speaking, it cannot be put in the hands of a plumber. And, after this, some still believe that the solution is to return to the approaches of the 70s or 80s of the 20th century “, concludes Javier Rodríguez.
Remove the sewage into vats
The Tenerife Island Water Council (CIATF) and the Garachico City Council have been working for months on an expensive and unsustainable alternative to eliminate discharges in Barranco Hondo: start moving all the wastewater produced by this municipality of 4,869 inhabitants in trucks Cuba to the Valle de Guerra treatment plant in La Laguna, more than 50 kilometers away. This possibility, which would end the dumping into the sea in Garachico, would have a very high economic cost. The mayor, José Heriberto González (CC), points out that the initial calculation is that it would be necessary to hire about ten Cuban trucks every day, at a price of around 250 euros each. The estimated cost is about 2,500 euros a day, 17,500 euros a week, about 75,000 euros a month.
