He Minister of Ecological Transition and Energy of the Government of the Canary Islands, Mariano Hernandez Zapatahas evaluated the sentence of the Supreme Court about the so-called Arid Case in Guimar (Tenerife) and has advanced that sYour department will work in coordination with the Island Council to study how to recover that area.
Hernández Zapata has advanced to the media this Monday that one of the alternatives on the table would be hydropumpingin such a way that the existing jump between the extraction of the upper part and the extractions of the lower part is taken advantage of to create a waterfall that allows generating electricity.
“A possible solution that has been talked about and that has been put on the table by an association, Fepeco, could be hydropumping; in such a way that, taking advantage of the upper part with the extractions from the lower part, two reservoirs could be built in the area and, with the height, cause a waterfall that could generate electricity with turbines,” he explained.
The counselor thanked “the work” of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court for the speed with which it responded after the cassation hearing on this matter was held on November 12.
In the sentence, which was announced this Monday by the newspaper ‘The day’the Supreme Court dismisses the appeals presented and ratifies the decision of the Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife of condemn several businessmen to pay 185 million euros for the illegal extraction of aggregates in ravines of the Tenerife municipality of Güímar.
A matter that dates back to 2005 and that, with this resolution of the High Court, becomes final, so the Canary Islands Government will be able, from this moment on, “sit down to work, to look for alternatives for recovery” from this area, Hernández Zapata has indicated.
Although he has talked about the hydropumping solution, the counselor has admitted that there are “several alternatives on the table,” and that the key to deciding what to do will come from “sitting down with the Tenerife Council and work in a coordinated manner.
And the fact is that, although the regional government is the one that has the powers in this matter, it seeks to do “something jointly” with the insular corporation so that both administrations are “comfortable“when making decisions.
The businessmen Antonio Plasencia, José Enrique Morales and Pedro Sicilia They were sentenced in January 2016 for crimes against natural resources and the environment to restore the damaged area.
However, in January 2021, the Provincial Court replaced this obligation to restore the natural environment with compensation after declaring the impossibility of restoring the ecological balance, in a resolution that is now ratified by the Supreme Court.
