Icod of the Wines will request permission from Government of Spain to celebrate a popular consultation so that it is the majority of the neighbors who decide the type of sand with which it should be regenerated San Marco beach. The mayor of the City of the Drago, Francis Gonzalez (CC)offered a press conference this Thursday, February 17, accompanied by his entire government team (CC-Cs), in which he announced that Costas has finally proposed to the Canary Islands Government the use of crushed sand, despite the fact that the municipal government has always opted for natural sand that exists “in quantity and quality” in the bay itself.
Francis Gonzalez understand that the approval of Costas to the regeneration project “It means recognizing the viability of using the natural sand in the area, but arguing that the necessary environmental impact reports would take time to be approved, he opted for a faster solution: crushing sand.” A change of criteria, in the opinion of the mayor, which they do not share and which they learned of earlier this month. The president stresses that “messing up with the regeneration of San Marco beach», as has happened with previous interventions, so it chooses to promote a regulated popular consultation, which requires authorization from the Government of Spain, so that «it is the Icodenses themselves who decide if they prefer to wait for the environmental impact reports to give green light to the use of natural sand or prefer a faster solution with crushed sand».
Although the issues that will be submitted to popular consultation are not closed, González advanced several examples of possible questions, including several alternatives: crushing sand without associated works, natural sand without associated works, crushing sand with works to prevent its dispersion, natural sand with works to prevent it from being lost, crushing sand initially with subsequent addition of natural sand… And a third way remains in the air, still pending the studies and technical reports prepared by the Government of the Canary Islands: the use from the ashes of the La Palma volcano to regenerate the icodense beach.
The third option, still pending technical reports, is the use of ash from the La Palma volcano
González adds that if the technicians consider that volcanic ash is an alternative, it could also be included in this popular consultation, “although at the moment there is nothing to indicate that its use is viable.” In his opinion, the best option is still to use part of the 16,000 cubic meters of natural sand that are known to exist on the bottom of San Marcos Bay.
The Government of Icodense has already taken a first step to request this consultation, which is to request a report from experts in Constitutional Law of the University of La Laguna (ULL), due to “the few legal references and the lack of precedents regarding this type of consultation”. Once these experts pronounce themselves, Francis González will raise a motion in plenary in which the Government of Spain will be requested to hold that consultation and, in the event that it is not authorized, “use other mechanisms to know the opinion of the icodenses». His intention is for this matter to come to a plenary session as soon as possible and he anticipates that it will be “a matter of days.” This proposal has already been discussed in San Marcos Beach Councillast February 11.
The mayor did not hide his discomfort “for the lost time” by other administrations regarding this project and by the traditional “Unacceptable treatment of Costas towards the Canary Islands”for which he highlighted the importance of “transferring the powers to the Archipelago, as established by the Statute of Autonomy». He insisted that the local government has taken all the necessary steps to regenerate the San Marcos beach and that if it has not been done so far, it is “because it does not depend only on the City Council.”
