The Governing Council of the Cabildo of Lanzarote approved last Thursday the Proposal for the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Sanitation Project of the town of El Golfo. This evaluation was issued in 2021 by the Department of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning and sent on the same date to the Island Council. While the file had been frozen since 2017.
Now, the Water area, led by Councilor Domingo Cejas, has given an administrative boost to the file with its approval in the Governing Council. At this moment it is already in the process of being published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Las Palmas.
“After an administrative paralysis in which the file processed by the Water Consortium of Lanzarote was blocked for two years, it has been subjected to a boost to try to meet the deadlines set by the Ministry for the execution of the work, and not have to lose the financing of the project for an amount of one million euros,” said President Oswaldo Betancort.
“The next step is to send the project to the Island Water Council for its authorization and bidding of the project,” explained Domingo Cejas. “The action includes the most appropriate technical solutions to design and execute a Sanitation Network, Wastewater Pumping Stations (WWPS) and Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in the coastal town of El Golfo, in the municipality of Yaiza, Lanzarote,” added the councilor.
“Neither in the archives of the Water Consortium nor of the Island Corporation is there any trace of said order, being in a position to affirm that it was never done,” said the president. Therefore, “the neglect and lack of action compromise the financing of the work because non-compliance would mean the return of the financing of the work, already deposited in the accounts of the Consortium, and the corresponding interest,” lamented Betancort.
The president of the Water Consortium and the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, guaranteed that “we will do everything on our part to meet the deadline for the execution of the work.” In this line, he promised to "not repeat the passivity and dereliction of duties that this file denotes." Thus, he indicated that there is "another financing agreement of four million for hydraulic works in several points of the island" that "the drafting of the projects has not even been commissioned during all these years."
The president of the Cabildo aspired to have the understanding and connivance of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition of the Government of Spain with whose representatives the fifth monitoring commission will be held on the morning of this Monday to report on the procedures carried out in 2022 and 2023 in compliance with said agreements and "that were not justified in said annuities."
In the process of speeding up and prioritizing the processing
The technical team of the Water Consortium of Lanzarote and the Island Water Council of Lanzarote are working "at full speed" to try to comply with the directive set by the president of both bodies and of the Island Corporation, in order to "speed up and prioritize the processing of files subject to deadlines and that are at risk of losing funding."
For its part, the El Golfo sanitation project defines and assesses the necessary works for the bidding and subsequent execution of all the elements and solutions necessary for the execution of the works of a new sewerage system and the new El Golfo WWTP, located in the municipality of Yaiza.
Currently, the town of El Golfo lacks these infrastructures, which means that the wastewater from the resident population and premises used for restaurants automatically becomes discharged into the environment, through the use of septic tanks.
An infrastructure of this type will allow the collection, channeling, pumping and proper treatment of wastewater collected from the various homes and businesses in the area.
The background of this project dates back to December 2017 when the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment (current Ministry for Ecological Transition), the Water Consortium of Lanzarote and the City Council of Yaiza signed an Agreement to implement a subsidy provided nominatively in the General State Budgets for sanitation, purification and reuse actions in El Golfo (T.M. Yaiza) for an estimated amount of one million euros.
At the follow-up meeting of the Agreement dated December 15, 2020, it was agreed to process the extension of the execution period for a period of four more years; the Water Consortium committed to commission Tragsa to process the project and execute the works.
