The Cabildo de Tenerife, through the Insular Water Council, and the La Laguna City Council will invest 1,066,000 euros in a project to improve the rainwater collection and channeling network in Las Chumberas, through an agreement that both administrations recently signed and for which the Cabildo will contribute 80% of the total investment and the Consistory the remaining 20%.
The insular councilor for Sustainable Development and the Fight Against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez Medina, explained yesterday, from Las Chumberas, that the project will be developed from the urbanization to the head of the El Hierro ravine and will solve “a hydraulic risk” that occurred when there were heavy rains, while complying with “what Europe establishes to separate residual networks from rainwater”.
In this regard, the counselor pointed out that “we have to take into account that the treatment plants have to be sized to be able to adequately treat those waters that have a polluting load, that is, wastewater. It does not make sense that we are sizing treatment plants to treat rainwater, which does not have a polluting load”.
This project solves a common problem in the area when there is heavy rain, which usually produces surface runoff and flooding, which runs along the roads until it reaches the upper part of the head of the El Hierro ravine, leaving images of large puddles and overflows of water in the avenue of Los Majuelos and from the gardens of the urbanization towards the TF-5.
With the aim of favoring the incorporation of these runoff waters from this urban basin to its course modified by the canalization of the El Hierro ravine, it is necessary to incorporate drainage elements that allow the runoff water to be diverted to its natural course in the surroundings of Nevado del Ruiz Volcano street.
Javier Rodríguez pointed out that the City Council has been delivered the economic contribution of the Cabildo and now it will be the Consistory that “bids and awards this important work.”
Meanwhile, the mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, appreciated the joint work between both administrations and added that this project will benefit the two new buildings that are being built in Las Chumberas, as well as “to the urbanization as a whole” and to the surroundings of adjacent streets, improving the channeling of water in the entire area.
Urbanization
On the other hand, consulted by the next phase of the urbanization, the councilor explained that “the works are quite advanced, we are already at the gates of having a new agreement for phase II. We have made a proposal to the Ministry to unify phases II and III into a single one and we are waiting for the Ministry to tell us between this month and the beginning of February if it accepts the proposal and sign that agreement”.
Regarding the first phase in execution, the latest forecast from the City Council is that the two buildings under construction will be completed in the last third of this year, although the mayor pointed out that, according to the company that executes them, “as of the first quarter we will be able to have one of the towers finished”.
