Javier Rodríguez Medina is an engineer and it shows. He gets excited when he talks about sewage treatment plants, connectors, desalination plants or environmental complexes like the one in Arico.
It shows the security of those who give an informed opinion; therefore, he is not a politician to use. Perhaps that is why he has had more than one disappointment from his position as councilor of the Cabildo, managing a good part of the insular budget, with little electoral revenue, contrary to what happens with Carreteras, since it is, as he says, money invested underground.
In this aspect, Rodríguez Medina has always distinguished himself by not putting too much heat on the situation he inherited from insular and regional governments, many of them with pacts between nationalists and socialists. “The Canary Islands, and Tenerife in particular, is a territory that has failed in sanitation and purification,” he points out. “In 30 years, no action has been taken on a reality that everyone saw and no one solved, perhaps because everything that is done underground does not have political profitability. Now, thanks to the largest contract signed with Acuaes (170 million), we are going to put an end to the dumping of wastewater on the coast of Tenerife, we are going to put an end to the million-dollar fines in Europe”, says the counselor, who also recalls the kindness of the construction of treatment plants, “not only to stop dumping untreated water into the sea, but so that it can be reused for agriculture”, a double reason for continuing to commit to treatment, as has been done, with special emphasis, on the Valle de Güímar, where two sewage treatment plants have been built, one urban and one industrial.
The first is waiting for a sufficient flow of sewage to arrive – the network of connectors in the three municipalities (Arafo, Candelaria and Güímar) must be completed, which is long overdue – to start operating. Not only will the submarine outfalls be eliminated, but also the cesspools.
