The mayor of The Silos, Macarena Fuentes (CC), recognizes that his municipality discharges wastewater into the sea without treatment and without a permit in force since 2017, and that to end this reality “the only way out” that exists at the moment is the signing of the controversial agreement with the Insular Council of Waters of Tenerife (Ciatf) and the Garachico Town Hall to launch the first phase of the district sanitation network. Although the focus has been only on the transfer of wastewater from Garachico towards the submarine emissary of the Silense coast, the mayor has made it clear in statements to Gente Radio that they need the insular support that this agreement guarantees to end the discharges and implement in the short term a system that complies with current legislation and reduces sea pollution in the area.
Macarena Fuentes has once again postponed until today the recording of an official statement from the government group Silense (CC-PP) to explain the signing of this agreement to all residents. It assumes that they have failed to communicate to the people and that they made the mistake of meeting “only with a part of the citizenry”, referring to Los Silos-Isla Baja Platform, which since last Sunday 19 has resumed protests against this agreement with the Cabildo and Garachico and has flooded Los Silos with posters against the government group.
The mayor insists that the situation that exists in the municipality since 2017, with illegal and untreated discharges, has forced the government group Silense to sign an agreement with which they hope to end up achieving the goal of “zero discharges into the sea”.
«The big mistake was to let a local emissary make on the coast of Los Silos»
For Fuentes, “the big mistake” that marks the current situation was “allowing the construction of a regional emissary on the coast of Los Silos” which, in addition, the City Council had to preserve and maintain. “I bathe on that coast, I enjoy that coast, we fish there and eat what is caught there,” emphasizes Fuentes to underline his defense of ending the dumping into the sea, which thanks to this agreement “At least they will meet the parameters that Europe asks of us”.
“We want zero discharges, but we do not have that now and it is not the reality. We need to treat and regenerate the water to use it for irrigation, regenerate aquifers or fight fires. Now we have the opportunity to advance that objective and the Cabildo has to help us. We are going to fight so that in 2022 we have the necessary financing to achieve it», Advances the nationalist president.
Macarena Fuentes recognizes that the Island Council refuses to finance large natural or extensive treatment plants such as the one proposed in The Polvillo, so the mayor emphasizes that she will work to have “a project, endorsed by the technicians, that guarantees the end of the discharges into the sea.”
After a few days of harsh criticism, “and even insults”, Fuentes also sends a message to those who, from outside the Town Hall, harshly criticize his decisions on wastewater management: “The brave thing is to be in the City Council making decisions that they may like more or less. The cowardly thing is to be out criticizing and trying to confuse the population ».
