The high social sensitivity to illegal dumping in Tenerifeand, specifically, in the Güímar Valley, was reflected again last week with the appearance of comments, images and videos on social networks, this time, against what happened months or years ago, creating an alarm with false information or unverified information, as they are milestones that have nothing to do with pollution, as has happened before, as this same newspaper has denounced.
Precisely, these complaints, and the European fine that the Government of the Canary Islands continues to pay -600,000 euros per month-, have forced the Cabildo and the municipalities of Arafo, Candelaria and Güímar to build an industrial water treatment plant (Edari) and another regional urban waters (Edaru) that have entailed a cost of almost 20 million euros, not counting the collectors and pumping stations necessary for the second to come into operation when the wastewater from the three municipalities arrives. The Edari outfall must be finished on November 2, according to the stage plan presented to the Deputy Ministry of the Environment, which has been authorizing the discharge into the sea after the water has been pretreated with a biological reactor placed last month. of March.
“The water that comes out of that outfall is clean,” says the mayor of Arafo, Juan Ramón Martín, angry after the hoax that sewage was being poured into the sea, as a result of a video where a stream was seen that was not another sand from the drainage work being done in the area to lay a new pipe in the outfall, which is 700 meters long and, once the Edari is completely finished (February 2, with the urbanization), it will remain as a spillway for those days when it is necessary to release water into the sea due to the rain. Martín regrets the misinformation that arose as a result of that video and the presence of microalgae in Candelaria, pointing out that “perhaps it has also been our fault, because we should communicate in an educational way the work we are doing, when we have spent almost two terms solving the serious problem of discharges and sanitation of the Güímar Valley”, he commented.