The construction of the desired El Pris fishing refuge, on the coast of Tacoronte, is still waiting for the environmental impact report to give the green light to the final project. Although the work announced in 2015 and amended in 2019, there is still a key step to specify its final cost and its execution. The tacorontero mayor, José Daniel Díaz (NC), ensures that this process was formally initiated before the Canary Islands Government “barely a month and a half ago”, so it will still be necessary to wait several more months before having the final document that will respond to a demand from the fishermen of El Pris from 57 years ago.
The Municipal Group of the Canary Islands Coalition-PNC in the municipality of Tacoronte announced today that it will request in the plenary session tomorrow that this protection dam be built in the area of the jetty of The Pris, “A work that would allow fishermen to fish 90 days a year on average, in addition to avoiding unfortunate accidents.”
The nationalists will take tomorrow, Thursday, January 13, 2022, a motion to the Plenary of the Tacoronte Town Hall for the execution of this “historical demand”. In addition, the CC will urge the Canary Islands Government so that, as a matter of urgency, it approves a budgetary modification in the 2022 accounts to include an item of at least 650,000 euros that allows to immediately start the tender for the works.
Jose Daniel Diaz considers that the CC-PNC proposal “is clearly insufficient, since the cost of the new dam will exceed two million euros, so with Those 650,000 euros would not even give to install the cranes”.
Díaz points out that a month and a half ago he held a meeting, together with the elder patron of the Fishermen’s Association of El Pris, with the deputy minister of Infrastructure and Transport of the Regional Ministry of Public Works, Gustavo Santana; the managing director of Puertos Canarios, Manuel Ortega, and the head of the department in charge of processing this regional file. “At that meeting they explained to us that the process for requesting that essential environmental impact report had just been carried out, so that until just 90 days ago, that step was still pending. Now the normal thing is that this report is within a period of between 6 and 10 months, but there is a commitment that we will try to accelerate to the maximum ”, details the mayor.
The aforementioned deputy counselor of the Canary Islands Government It has also promised that as soon as the environmental impact report is approved, “the budget item necessary for its tender will be consigned. They have assured us that for the regional government it is a priority project, ”says Díaz.
The nationalist spokesman in the Tacoronte Town Hall, the former mayor Alvaro Davila, remember that the Fishermen’s Guild from The Pris “For many years he has been requesting the construction of a protection dam in the jetty area that allows them fish approximately 90 more days a year and significantly increase the personal safety of fishermen at the time of embarkation and disembarkation, in which there have been a multitude of unfortunate accidents, some of them very serious ”.
“In March 2018 it was published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands the tender for the final draft of the construction project and the completion of the work, with the misfortune that it was left deserted, as no company submitted to the tender. Canarian ports He then decided to write the project directly and put only the work out to tender ”, recalls Dávila.
The nationalist mayor maintains that “once finished, the only thing missing was the inclusion in the Budgets of the Autonomous Community of the corresponding game. But nevertheless, the Government of the Canary Islands it did not include any item in the 2020 draft budget and voted against a CC amendment to include it. ” It details that the same happened in the 2021 budgets, although a CC amendment of 600,000 euros was accepted, reducing it to 200,000 euros, “although it was not finally executed.”
“In the 2022 budget, approved in the last days of December, the budget item was not included either and, again, the groups that support the regional government they voted against a CC amendment to include 650,000 euros again ”.
Jose Daniel Diaz It responds that without the project definitively approved, “for which the environmental impact report is essential”, “it is not possible to incorporate an item, since the real cost of the work is unknown”.
Despite CC’s doubts, Díaz hopes that around next May the environmental impact report of a 65 meter long dike, consisting of “large prisms of about 24 tons each”, which will cost “more than two million euros”. The mayor of tacorontero trusts that, if the established deadlines are met, the work can be put out to tender in the summer of 2022, “which is the period of calm in which work could be done in the area”.
