The City Hall of Aricotogether with the collaboration of all the neighborhood associations of the municipality and the Fishermen’s Association of San Miguel de Tajao, has submitted allegations to the offshore wind farm project that the Port Authority intends to carry out with several promoters just off the coast of Tajao and Las Maretas.
The allegations indicate that the activity that is intended to be installed, through the concession request, affects “negatively the quality of life of the populations of the municipality’s coast.” Likewise, the allegations indicate that “offshore wind activity requires prior planning and management of the electricity sector, a special territorial plan for the management of the electricity system, which the island of Tenerife lacks.”
It is also noted that this project affects “directly and indirectly the development of a pre-existing economic activity in the area.” As stated in the document, the implementation of the offshore wind farm “would come into conflict with this primary economic sector, declared of a strategic nature”, conditioning, limiting and preventing “the fishing activity that has traditionally been carried out in the area, in addition to affecting to the seabed to support said activity”.
Along with this condition, the project would have as a consequence “impacts on the environment, due to the proximity to the coast, the production of environmental noise, which would directly affect the closest population centers, as well as marine wildlife” .
The concession would cause, according to what is stated, “important effects on the exercise of the fishing activity of the Fishermen’s Association of San Miguel de Tajao”, affecting “negatively the fishing activity, the organization and activity of the association, by preventing fishing in a strip of water in front of the fishing refuge.
The execution of this project would generate “environmental noise and an important landscape impact on the marine visual basin of the entire municipality of Arico and, especially, on all the neighborhoods of the coast, such as Las Maretas, La Caleta, Las Arenas, Tajao, La Jaca, La Listada, Abades, el Porís and las Ceras, caused by the wind turbines so close by”.
In turn, from this perspective, it would mean a reduction “of visits to businesses, restaurants and rural tourism houses and vacation homes, by devaluing the destination of Arico due to the loss of environmental value.”
