In an order issued on Tuesday, it reduces the four – exonerates a dozen councilors (6), technicians and public managers (4) – from being investigated in this case and accuses them of “allegedly allowing, in an conscious and voluntary and since July 2013, a continuous and uncontrolled discharge of wastewater from all the companies in the largest industrial estate in Tenerife (with between 200 and 220 companies, it specifies) and from the El Socorro and La Viuda urbanizations» . It was carried out “without purging, treating, or legalizing”, with the aggravating circumstance that, “in the recipient marine environment, it caused, at least in 2017, a serious risk for the quality of water, the balance of natural systems and the health of people, directly breaking the applicable environmental regulations.
Passive behavior.
After describing as “alleged, but serious and direct” the responsibility of the mayors of Candelaria, Arafo and Güímar between 2013 and 2017, and after specifying that the municipalities have owned the Industrial Estate since July 23, 2013, the judge attributes politicians responsible for a “passive conduct” in compliance with municipal powers in the management and maintenance of “the infrastructures of the wastewater evacuation network”. Thus, «The facilities were left in a state of absolute abandonment, with the existing buildings remaining at the head of the outfall and the pumping stations without closure and robbed and the pumps and equipment not working, with signs of overflow of the flow of the discharge, coming to appreciate danger to the life or health of people.
Conscious omission.
The judge emphasizes that “consciously and voluntarily, without apparent justification”, the municipal authorities of the Güímar Valley “since July 2013 omitted the administrative actions to which they were imperatively obliged in the control, treatment and legalization of water discharges residues to the marine environment, which are precisely those that have been attacked since March 2017 with the initiation of the criminal case ».
The origin.
A summary of 24,500 pages spread over 61 volumes that has its origin in the complaint filed on June 1, 2017 by Agustín Espinosa and Lourdes Galindo, then councilors of Sí se puede in Candelaria and Güímar, respectively, and Francis Hernández, mayor of the Left United Canary in Arafo at that time. They pointed to the Cabildo, the Tenerife Island Water Council (Ciatf), the Urban and Natural Environment Protection Agency (Apmun), the Mixed Compensation Association and the municipalities of the Güímar Valley as responsible. They argued that the organic contamination indicators multiplied the legally admitted values by 30, a figure that raises the order issued this week to 38 based on the analyzes carried out on the samples collected at seven points near the submarine outfall.
Breaches.
The judge affirms that this structure does not conform to the original project, since it measures 736.50 meters (157 land, 540 underwater and 39.50 from branch II). It also mentions another municipal breach; «the Urban Conservation Entity (EUC) that would allow the optimum management and maintenance of the Estate, mentioned repeatedly in those agreements (with the initial ownership of the Estate) and whose constitution had been assumed, as an obligation, by the three City Councils, was not created , neither before the reception of the urbanization nor after».
The complainants.
The car was made public, Sí se puede and Izquierda Unida Canaria they announce that they are preparing the accusation “against those responsible for the discharge of residual waters in the Polígono de Güímar”; they remember that the way is opened towards the oral trial; that they will study political reactions in the municipalities of the Güímar Valley, where they maintain their representation, and draw attention to the fact that “these discharges incomprehensibly had an authorization from the Deputy Ministry of the Environment of the Government of the Canary Islands.”
Mari Brito respects the decision but does not share it
The mayor of Candelaria, Mari Brito, expresses her utmost respect for judicial decisions. At the same time, he assures that he does not share the car and announces that he will present the corresponding resources. He clarifies that since he became aware of the problem of discharges from the Polígono «I have acted and worked intensely for its solution». It establishes that it is “a complex problem in which the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo de Tenerife and the three municipalities of the Güímar Valley intervene, in the case of a supra-municipal area”. He considers that an example of this is that, “Today, after the work and administrative cooperation exercised and necessary within the framework of a complicated process, the problem has been solved, the discharge authorization for the outfall is in force and finalizing the start-up of the industrial wastewater treatment plant, built by the Insular Water Council of the Cabildo de Tenerife».
