Joe Duggan (Reporter)
THE Junta de Andalucia Junta is facing a whopping €40 million fine for failing to treat the region’s sewage.
The regional authorities are to be hit with the huge EU levy as the key deadline of December 31 looms and dozens of towns still pump their raw sewage into rivers and the sea.
Three construction companies are now suing the Junta claiming that it has deliberately held back on numerous new sewage plants despite having the money to build them.
Key towns such as Nerja, Estepona and Torrox still pump millions of tonnes of sewage into the sea.
In total, there are more than 300 plants that have still not been built.
Fadeco, CeacopP and Asica argue that while all homeowners pay up to four euros a month in water rates, only €59 million of the €346 million collected since 2011 has been reinvested.
“We could face a penalty of about €40 million for failing to purify water in Andalucia,” said Asica boss Ignacio Sanchez.
Francisco Fernandez, president of Ceacop, criticised the Junta for spending only €59 million on construction projects when it had agreed to finance €1.7 billion of work in 2012.
“This is only 3.3% of the total of the 300 construction projects planned,” he said.
The Spanish authorities are too busy with new housing, hotels, golf courses and malls to worry about insignificant projects like water treatment plants. How did Spain get this so wrong? Total incompetence, that’s how.
Sewage arrangements are basically out of sight, out of mind & therefore not a vote winner but also “personal arrangements” sometimes take longer than hoped to arrange. Now it would seem, nobody is going to gain & all the punters could end up paying the fine.
The report says:
‘while all homeowners pay up to four euros a month in water rates, only €59 million of the €346 million collected since 2011 has been reinvested.’
If this is true, then a fine of ‘only’ €40 million is a big deal for those who had spent the missing €287 million anywhere else. The EU fine has the effect of a fee to be payed to ‘legalize’ those practics. Economy beats ecology.
Another way to look at it is a BIG brown envelope containing 247 million euros after “expenses” of a 40 million multa. Chicken feed in the grand scheme of things.