The Municipality of Buenavista del Norte filed a second appeal against the sanction of the Insular Water Council (Ciatf) because the Industrial water treatment (WWTP) located on the access road to Los Barqueros beach does not have the necessary administrative authorization to be able to purify and discharge wastewater into the subsoil, something that it has been doing since it came into operation.
The Consistory presented in November of last year a statement of discharge against the sanction proposal, which amounts to 60,000 euros, because the discharges are classified as “very serious” by the technicians of the aforementioned body, attached to the Cabildo de Tenerife.
“Ciatf’s arguments are the same despite the fact that the file was paralyzed to make some checks after our claims and that is why we have resubmitted another appeal,” the mayor of Buenavista, Antonio González Fortes, confirmed to this newspaper. “I have told the counselor that the ideal is for the file to be closed because there are legal arguments on our part that invite us to do so,” said the president.
Specifically, he referred to the “contradictions” of the file, in which the affected waters are not indicated, nor is the damage caused to the public hydraulic domain specified, and there is no technical report that determines the damage associated with said sanction.
On April 21, a meeting was held with the Ciatfe legal office and, according to González, “it became clear that the file emanates from a process that they launched ex officio in August 2019 upon learning that there was a treatment plant there, when we have reflected since 2004 that in the Ciatfe reports on the General Plan it already existed”. In addition, he added, in 2016 “a plan was made for the purification throughout the Island, on which the financing that the Cabildo granted to the City Council in 2017 and 2018 was based, in which the agency spoke of the conditions in which where the sewage treatment plant was.”
González insisted, as he has done since the moment this matter became known, that the sanction “does not make sense” and considers that “it is a punishment” to the local government (Yes you can-CC) for its position with the regional sewage treatment plant and its commitment to natural purification. However, he said that he was concerned about “the possible criminal responsibilities that may arise and the Ciatf, as a regulatory body, also has them, because it is aware of how the WWTP is in the last 20 years and, therefore, it should be the main interested in this situation being resolved”. The mayor also warned that it will come “to the last consequences” and did not rule out going to court, because he understands that the fine “not only has no reason to be, but that they are giving the City Council a responsibility that is them” and, furthermore, “legally wrong has been done”.
The version on this matter of the island councilor for Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez Medina, is different. He recalled that due to the seriousness of the discharges, the public administration that resolves is the Government of the Canary Islands, through the Deputy Ministry for the Fight against Climate Change, after analyzing the proposal and the sanction raised by CIATF. In this regard, he announced that this week the body will issue its second resolution after the new appeal filed.
“The file has to be concluded, it cannot be closed due to some spills that exist, that anyone can go there to check it,” said Rodríguez.
He acknowledged that the treatment plant is very old, “but a technician who participated in the last meeting assured that it had been working for many years until in 2019 it was found that the situation had worsened, that the motor that rotated the disc was not working and, therefore, Therefore, the process that purified the water was not being generated, although it did not do so optimally”.
Regarding the Consistory’s decision to go to court, Rodríguez blurted out: “What is relevant is the spill that is taking place and that is what worries us. It is an impeccable resolution, based on verifiable facts. I hope that the Consistory focuses all its efforts on putting an end to the discharges and not on starting a procedure that, in my opinion, makes no sense”.
