The Canary Islands Business Association of Environmental Consultants (Aeccm) presented a formal complaint to the Ministry of Ecological Transition on the 3rd of this month regarding the pace of the works on the Buenos Aires treatment plant, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which has taken “two years late,” according to his complaint.
The president of this entity, Juan Rumeu, censures the “regrettable state of sanitation in the Canary Islands and the chaos of untreated wastewater discharges into the sea.” Furthermore, he warns that “the damage they can cause to citizens who frequent bathing beaches on the Islands is sufficiently proven.”
This association already denounced, at the beginning of this year and before the European Commission, the situation of illegal discharges of sewage and other types on the Islands. It did so following a discharge census prepared by the regional government itself in 2021, which stated that there were 434 polluting sources, of which only 123 had authorization. In the opinion of the organization, the report showed the horrific situation that existed and demanded complaints and urgent actions, a panorama not only corroborated by the new regional Executive that emerged from the elections last May, but is considered insufficient because the analysis is totally incomplete and, For this reason, he intends to develop another one.
According to the Aeccm, “continuous crimes against public health and the environment are being committed without those responsible for preventing them acting with determination and transparency.”
This has led them to file a complaint with the Ministry on the 3rd, “given the ineffectiveness of the Santa Cruz City Council and its lack of transparency, to demand the urgent completion of the works of the Buenos Aires treatment plant, a work awarded in 2018. and that it had to be operational in 2021.”
The entity regrets that the works have been carried out only “a little more than 50%” and that they suffer “a delay of more than two years, failing to comply with the award contract and without the city council having made any claim for the culpable non-compliance with the construction company and the Ministry.”
As the entity explains to this newspaper, “more than 20 million liters of wastewater are dumped daily on the coast of Santa Cruz without treatment. The environmental responsibility belongs to the City Council and its incomprehensible lack of transparency is what has moved us to act as a civil society, among other things because Santa Cruz has received several economic sanctions as a consequence of the discharges into the sea that we all pay for.
Rumeu recalls that these works were tendered “for more than 32 million and were awarded for just over 20” and considers that the local Corporation should commission “an urgent audit through open competition on the expansion work of the treatment plant that is being carried out.” .
In his opinion, “the lack of transparency in this matter and the well-founded suspicion that the facilities being built are not sized to be able to treat the wastewater flows from Santa Cruz and neighborhoods, part of La Laguna, La Esperanza, Acorán and Añaza” require an adequate investigation.” In this sense, they doubt the water “that Balten sends because it does not meet the requirements to be reused”, as well as those arising from “the demographic growth of the capital.”
For the president, “the agglomerations of Acorán and Añaza have completed the pre-litigation phase of an infringement procedure (2016/2134) of the European Commission for non-compliance with Directive 91/271/EEC, included in the third cycle Hydrological Plan 2021- 2027. This is on the way to an economic sanction, another one,” he denounces.
DIARIO DE AVISOS tried yesterday, without success, to have the Ministry’s version. From the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council, the first deputy mayor and councilor of the area, Carlos Tarife (PP), stressed that these are Ecological Transition works, that he is in weekly contact with the person in charge of the Ministry and that, although The deadline is September 2024 to complete the work, they will do everything possible to speed it up, while underlining their demand for maximum speed with the works to minimize the inconvenience that is inevitably caused in different areas. from the city.
