The mayor of Los Silos, Macarena Fuentes (CC), lives a difficult crossroads regarding the discharge of wastewater into the sea in which you have to decide if you contradict what the Island Council, through the Insular Water Council of Tenerife (CIATF), or it faces the Los Silos-Isla Baja Platform. The nationalist president is, in her first term at the head of the Consistory, between a rock and a hard place. The island administration has asked you since last April to sign the agreement to put into use a work, worth more than one million euros, which will allow a primary treatment and transfer of wastewater from the neighboring municipality of Garachico to the regional emissary, located on the coast of Los Silos. In addition, it would serve to stop the untreated discharge of the sewage from its own municipality and repair the deteriorated outfall. The platform demands that you not sign and now directly threatens to denounce it if you seal that agreement with CIATF.
Macarena Fuentes has requested legal reports from the municipal secretary and also external jurists to try to clarify the consequences of either option. At the moment, everything is still pending a final decision that will also mark the future of the wastewater treatment system in Isla Baja. The refusal to sign the agreement may mean the final goodbye to the district system, but it could also put the Los Silos City Council in a serious predicament, since it would have to make large investments to end some spills that could also lead to a complaint against the mayor . The decision not to sign the agreement could leave the wastewater problem solely in the hands of a city council that manages a budget of just 5 million euros and has suffered, for years, a difficult economic situation. The locality would have to face alone the creation of a treatment plant and the repair of an emissary that was in its charge. Two millionaire performances.
The mayor of Silense, Macarena Fuentes (CC), assured yesterday to THE DAY that “the final decision will depend solely on the legal reports. Everything is in the hands of lawyers and shortly we will see what we have to do. The intention of the local government (CC-PP) is to announce the final position in the coming days.
Fuentes does not hide his displeasure at the words of the Minister of Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Javier Rodríguez (PSOE), who in statements to EL DÍA described as “Nonsense and unreason” that the City Council does not sign the necessary agreement to put into operation the work of channeling the sewage from Garachico to the local emissary. In the opinion of the mayor, “it is a lack of respect, especially when she knows that we are awaiting these legal reports.”
Fuentes will meet today with an external legal advisor to analyze the reports from the secretary and the Los Silos-Isla Baja Platform, “who have another opinion, but will have to respect what is decided in accordance with the law,” warns Fuentes.
The president and spokesperson of the Los Silos-Isla Baja Platform, Roberto Hernández, assures that the group will denounce the mayor of Silense and the Insular Council of Waters of Tenerife if the necessary agreement is finally signed so that the wastewater of Garachico is channeled to The Silos. “If they accept this agreement, there will be mobilizations in the street and we will also denounce them for the spills into the sea,” they warn from this group.
The platform met a few days ago with all the political forces with representation in the Plenary of the Los Silos City Council (CC, PP and PSOE) and its main conclusion is that «Everyone is in favor of natural (extensive) purification, but they make excuses to justify the possible discharges to the sea. They have not been very clear on that ”, acknowledges Hernández.
The platform’s position is “natural purification and zero discharges”, however they fear that the Tenerife Island Water Council “will pressure the Silense City Council” to end up accepting the transfer of water from Garachico, which the Cabildo assures that will be dealt with before reaching the sea. For Roberto Hernández, “Los Silos can continue to discharge as before because it is a municipality of less than 10,000 inhabitants, but if the waters of Garachico are incorporated, it would no longer be possible and we will have to report them.”
«The mayor of Los Silos is afraid that the Cabildo will denounce her for not approving the wastewater transfer agreement, but we have already shown you that you have legal grounds to refuse. What would be an illegality would be to allow the waters of Garachico to be dumped, ”insists the spokesman for this citizen group.
At the end of January 2021, the Plenary of the Cabildo de Tenerife approved a motion by Sí Podemos Canarias to promote natural purification in the Isla Baja. The initiative went ahead with the favorable vote of CC and PP. A political victory for the theses of the Los Silos Isla Baja Platform. The proposal proposed to establish a natural purification model in Los Silos, Garachico and Buenavista, and to carry out the necessary work to regularize the provisional discharges while the new model is being developed, which would be understood as regional so that it would be financed by the Cabildo.
Natural purification
Eight months after that agreement, the platform considers that the island government (PSOE-Cs) has made “a peculiar interpretation to go around the bush.” Roberto Hernández censures that “now they are talking about previous feasibility studies”, which they consider “a ruse to not comply with what has been approved.” This group points out that the solution they defend “is not nonsense” and they advocate the construction of a treatment plant with a Natural and Resilient Treatment System (SDNR) on the coast of Los Silos.
The island councilor for Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez (PSOE), also put the focus this week on Los Silos for block the agreement to use the submarine outfall, a position that he called “nonsense.” In addition, he criticized the Los Silos Isla Baja Platform for not showing concern about the spills that currently occur in both Los Silos and Garachico “while a solution that has existed since April is blocked.”
The ball is now on the roof of the Silense Government (CC-PP), which faces a legal crossroads that, in one sense or another, may have legal consequences for the team led by Macarena Fuentes (CC).
Macarena Fuentes (right) is debating between authorizing the channeling of the sewage from Garachico to the outfall of Charco de la Araña (above) or blocking the transfer as requested by the citizen platform (below)
