The Lanzarote En Pie municipal group in the Arrecife City Council has stated that the mayor of Arrecife, Ástrid Pérez, knew about the project and the location of the waste plant in the Puerto Naos area for "two years". In this way, the party assures that it has once again become evident that the government group "lies as a rule to defend its arguments against those of the opposition."
LEP maintains that, during the last plenary session, the mayor of Arrecife, Astrid Pérez, "claimed to be unaware of the project itself." However, the spokesperson for the municipal group, Leticia Padilla, assures that "there are several reports from the urban planning area that show that she had knowledge of it, at least, since November 2019." According to Padilla, "the mayor stated that the City Council had issued two reports on the authorization of the urban planning certificate to the promoting company, but that she has only recently learned about the project."
"How is it possible that there have been reports on the location of a waste treatment plant in the middle of Arrecife since 2019 and until now no one has cared about it?" questions Padilla, who also asks the question of "how is it possible that, having prior knowledge, no one has responded to the two communications from the Government of the Canary Islands." "It is a project that will undoubtedly create great controversy among the population, especially due to the location of the plant," says the group's spokesperson.
LEP claims that the environmentalists of the Canary Islands "deny the government of Arrecife"
Lanzarote en Pie adds that the Councilor for Urban Planning, Eduardo Placeres, stated in plenary "that the environmental organization Ben-Magec supported this waste treatment plant," while the mayor assured that "all the environmentalists in the world were in favor of this type of facility." However, LEP recalls that this "was publicly denied by the Federation Ecologistas En Acción-Ben Magec itself who, in addition, demanded that the Arrecife government group retract such statements."
The formation adds that environmental organizations such as Amigos de la Tierra have also positioned themselves against it, which has explained through the head of Climate Justice, Cristina Alonso, that "the injection of biogas into gas networks implies the permanence of this polluting fuel in the energy matrix, delaying decarbonization and displacing other types of truly renewable energy in the energy transition." In this same line, adds LEP, the head of Waste and Natural Resources of the organization, Adriana Espinosa, has expressed herself, who considers that this type of project "would imply taking a big step back in waste management and going against European regulations on circular economy, in addition to aggravating the climate crisis."
"Half-truths are beginning to be a habitual pattern of behavior on the part of Astrid Pérez's government group, and it is completely unforgivable that it is done within the highest body of popular representation," says Leticia Padilla, who maintains that "the mayor lied in November 2020 when she said that Arrecife would have the approval of the Supplementary Planning Plan in February of this year; however, to this day there is no date for final approval."
Likewise, the spokesperson affirms that the mayor "is lying when she says that the draft of the Plan is the same as in 2017 and that nothing has been touched, given that it presented a solution for the scattered settlements of Arrecife." "The current draft has varied, because as the Deputy Minister of Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands recognized, the draft of the Supplementary Plan of Arrecife leaves out the scattered settlement of Las Vírgenes," Padilla concludes.
