The hydroelectric power station, trapped in the Supreme

On January 20, 2022, the Supreme Court received the appeals filed by businessmen Antonio Plasencia, and Enrique Moralesas well as companies Áridos del Sur, SL and Hermanos Morales Martín, SL, linked to industrialists, respectively. The Güímar City Council also appealed, demanding that it be considered as an administration to be compensated given the evidence of the damage caused to the municipality by the activity carried out in the Güímar ravines for almost half a century.

The Admission Chamber of the Supreme Court collected the appeals on June 7, 2022, procedural moment in which the so-called Áridos de Güímar case is located. Its definitive resolution is essential for the stability of the future energy supply of Tenerife since two of the quarries formed by the extraction of the aggregate are indicated to build the hydroelectric power station. Without a firm sentence they cannot be used.

He is no stranger to this President of the Government of the Canary IslandsAngel Victor Torres, who assured a week ago that “the will of the administrations has always been to collaborate with justice and seek solutions. And what we are proposing now is an energy solution that is reasonable, logical and operational, which also has the support of the administrations Canary Islands and also Redeia (the company promoting the project) and the Government of Spain».

The beggining.

In the ravines of Badajoz, Los Ríos, Guirres and Guaza or Fregenal, the aggregate used in public and private works in Tenerife since the 1970s was extracted. In 1997, the then mayoress, Vicenta Díaz, decreed the closure and seal of four quarries. That measure, appealed by the businessmen, was rejected by the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC). In November 1999, authorities and residents temporarily closed the access to the extraction sites until the parties reached an agreement. But the closure came in April 2008, that is, 11 years after Vicenta Díaz determined it.

The Canary Islands Territory and Environment Planning Commission (Cotmac) pointed out, in 2003, that “in the areas of the Güímar ravines, a large part of the existing mining operations had been operating clandestinely for years and failed to comply with the mandatory authorizations or with current regulations. This body of the regional Executive maintained that “no mining industry has the appropriate municipal license.” An argument that the Prosecutor’s Office would use 13 years later.

closures.

The first aggregate extraction industry was sealed on June 21, 2004. Javier Mederos (CC) did it in his capacity as accidental mayor and affected Áridos del Atlántico, an action that he repeated on December 15 of the same year with Áridos del Puertito . The next one took place in February 2005 and affected two other quarries. April 9, 2008 is a date that is already in the history of Güímar, because that day was when the authority closed El Fregenal. The struggle for the restoration of the area began.

Whistleblowers.

Echoing the neighborhood unrest and understanding that Güímar was the object of “the greatest environmental attack” in the Canary Islands –this is how the then Güímarero mayor and today a common deputy, Rafael Yanes would describe it years later– Francisco Javier Hernández Armas (then, during the 1999- 2003, he was the only PNC councilor in the Güímar City Council) and the farmer Jesús Segundo Jorge Díaz presented the complaint that would motivate the arid case.

Judgment.

Room 12 of the Palace of Justice of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the scene, from 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, January 19, 2016, of the trial against the five business owners of the companies that extracted aggregate from the Güímar ravines. The accusation was limited to the last 17 years of activity. On January 28, the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife declared businessmen Antonio Plasencia, José Enrique Morales and Pedro Sicilia “responsible for a crime against natural resources and the environment” – he would later with Francisco del Rosario (April 4 of the same year), who went to jail – and sentenced them to one year and three months in prison, suspended in exchange for restoring the area.

Pay.

The Second Section of the Provincial Court issued an order, on January 21, 2021, in which it declared “the impossibility” of restoring the Güímar ravines in which aggregate was extracted and replaced such means by the joint compensation of 185 million euros, according to the final valuation carried out by the Government of the Canary Islands of the damages caused after the evaluations presented by the Tenerife Island Water Council (Ciatf) and the private prosecution.

The parties are waiting for the Supreme Court to issue a final decision soon on the appeals filed by the convicted persons and by the Güímar City Council. This administration is not taken into account by the Provincial Court as a beneficiary in the compensation to which it obliges the convicted businessmen. The Consistory hopes that the Supreme Court corrects this measure.

Proposals.

A tire-to-energy transformation plant, the first high-temperature geothermal power plant in Spain and the construction of an amusement park (Mimiland Park) were some of the proposals that were put forward for its development in the aggregate quarries. Some initiatives claimed by the then mayoress, Carmen Luisa Castro (PP), as part of the future of the area and the municipality. “I’m not crazy and I’m not selling smoke,” she assured then.

Hydroelectric power station.

A week ago, Beatriz Corredor, president of Redeia, the group to which Red Eléctrica belongs, made it clear that “Tenerife needs, as is already underway in Gran Canaria, that storage system that allows more renewables to be integrated. The most efficient and effective storage system is undoubtedly pumping. Within Tenerife, studies have been carried out on different locations, but all these studies agree that the one in Güímar will probably be the best. Not only from the point of view of the electrical infrastructure itself, but also to recover a space that is degraded for reasons that everyone knows », she said.

Corredor acknowledged that “preliminary studies are being carried out and, always in agreement with the Government of the Canary Islands and the Government of Spain, as soon as we can, we will launch it.” So that there is no doubt, he remarked that “it is planned to build a pumping station in Tenerife as quickly as possible.”

Two quarries.

The proximity of the Güímar ravines to the Las Caletillas (Candelaria) substation, the possibility of connecting with the existing energy transmission network with ease and the conditions of the place are the fundamental aspects for which the Tenerife hydroelectric plant will be built. in Guimar. With a cost that has come to be quantified at 800 million euros, its storage capacity will be around 300 megawatts. That is, a third of what the Island currently consumes.

Once the Supreme Court issues its final ruling, it will be up to the central government to authorize the execution of the Tenerife hydroelectric plant. It would occupy two of the six existing aggregate quarries. The one located at the highest altitude is called Badajoz, owned by Áridos del Sur, SA, a company owned by the businessman Antonio Plasencia. It is one of the largest. The second is the Agache quarry, owned by Áridos Puertito de Güímar, SL, located in Los Guirres, next to the Autopista del Sur (TF-1) highway. Today it is owned by the State, since Fulgencio Díaz, the businessman who created and exploited it, died in 2014, for which reason criminal proceedings were extinguished in application of the Penal Code. His heirs renounced the inheritance.

The Nueva Canarias Island Committee in Tenerife supported the choice of Güímar to locate the reversible pumping station. The Secretary of Territorial Implantation of NC, Valentín Correa, stressed that the principle of agreement shown by Red Eléctrica and the Government of the Canary Islands “will mean the recovery of a degraded space”.