“One of the most serious environmental problems that exists in Tenerife is the discharge of sewage into the sea, but we have set out to reverse this situation and that is why we are presenting an important project,” said the president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, yesterday after visiting the action that is carried out in the collectors of the Valle de La Orotava, contemplated in the agreement between the insular Corporation and Acuaes.
Started in March, it has an investment of 12.5 million euros and will include just over 11 kilometers of collectors and tubes to channel wastewater in the four municipalities of the Valley: Santa Úrsula, La Orotava, Los Realejos and Puerto de la Cruz to the regional treatment plant, located in this last town, in which another 25 million will be invested to guarantee that not only the water is collected but later to be able to distribute it in agriculture throughout the Valley and even that it can reach the Low Island.
Of the total, almost nine pipe sections will be by gravity and the rest will be impulsion. Its completion is scheduled for December next year.
Pedro Martín offered these details accompanied by the island councilor for Sustainable Development, Javier Rodríguez; the deputy delegate of the Government Jesús Javier Plata; the mayor of Villero, Francisco Linares; several councilors of the Corporation; the manager of the Insular Water Council, Javier Davara, and staff from this organization and from Acuaes.
The project includes two wastewater pumping stations (ebares), in San Vicente, Los Realejos, and Vista Paraíso, in Santa Úrsula, as well as the improvement of four others in Playa Jardín, El Faro, San Telmo and Martiánez, in the touristic city.
municipal effort
Martin stressed that this action must be completed with the municipal tertiary network. “The important thing in this treatment process is not only to build new sewage treatment plants and collectors, which represent a very large investment, but also to connect them with homes and buildings, because there are still many that have not been done on the Island and I think that in this sense municipalities have to make an effort. The Cabildo contributes money in the Cooperation Plan to carry out these improvement works in the municipalities”. In fact, he added, “the new plan was increased by 25%, reaching 66 million, but there is still a lot of work to be done at the local level.”
Javier Rodríguez underlined the importance of “complying with the directive on the proper treatment of wastewater and also ending the problem of contamination of the aquifer, which is caused by the existence of these cesspools, and to do so, through this network we will be able to take all the wastewater to the regional treatment plant”.
For his part, Francisco Linares stressed that the new municipal constructions will be connected to this network, thus taking a big step and “contributing together to leave a better Island for our young people.”
