The decision is made.
The barely 150 inhabitants of Vilar de Canes, a small municipality in the interior of Castellón, have spoken this Saturday about the installation of five wind turbines in their municipal district.
And they have said no, forcefully.
The referendum was held almost six months after the council of ministers approved the holding of this vote and after almost two years since a company showed interest in building a small wind farm in this town in Maestrazgo where when it blows The wind breaks records.
“Do you agree that the City Council pronounces itself favorably on urban aspects and, in general, on the actions of municipal competence necessary for the approval of the La Selleta Wind Plan?”, was the question to which 72 people from Villarencos responded. voted no and two others yes.
In addition, there has been a blank vote.
The one in Vilar de Canes has been one of the 74 popular consultations authorized by the Council of Ministers, as provided for in the law regulating the bases of the local regime, since 1985. Like the others, it met the requirements required by this type of vote: there were an agreement of the plenary, the request for authorization from the mayor, the object of the consultation is of municipal competence, of a local nature, of special relevance for the interests of the neighbors and has nothing to do with the local treasury.
The people have lived this Saturday like any other Saturday.
Half an hour after the ballot box opened, only two people had voted.
The first was Miguel Ángel Bou, who tells how La Selleta is practically the only place they have in the municipality.
"And there is also a nest of an eagle owl and it is the path of many hikers and hunters."
He is openly opposed to the park but, above all, because of the ways in which he handled its processing.
"And when it stops working, who is in charge of removing and recycling those mills?" He asks as one of the many unknowns that, they say, have not been explained.
The fact is that the park project was planned for an area that is barely 800 meters from the town center and that would break its closest landscape.
Two cyclists pass in front of the Selleta area, in Vilar de Canes, for which a company presented a wind farm project.ANGEL SANCHEZ
Within the normality of any weekend, the signs with a "no" in some of the houses in the town is the only symptom that something is happening.
And, practically, the only campaign, in addition to an information table called by a group of neighbors, also opposed to the park.
"There has been a lack of transparency," says Alberto Sales, one of the people who organized the information point.
“And we want it to be clear that we are not against the park or the renewables, but rather the fact that they do not explain the conditions to us and do not guarantee that the mills will guarantee the well-being of the people.
The problem is that we cannot value anything,” he explains.
And it is that, since the project was presented, things have happened.
The socialist José María Domínguez was elected mayor in 2019 and a little over a year later he began negotiating the installation of the wind turbines.
According to what he said, the company promised to pay the electricity bill of the neighbors.
But the commotion began.
The PP demanded the participation of the villarencos on the plan and last year there was even a mobilization and protest.
Domínguez died in October 2021 and the other three municipal councilors voted for Aurelio Pitarch, 89, as the new mayor.
He has preferred not to take sides.
"It's a townspeople thing," he alleges.
“I already said that I would do what the people decided,” he adds.
But not only the mayor has changed.
The company that promoted the park, the Germania group of facilities and services, has not campaigned either.
The project had planned an installed capacity of 27.5 MW and five wind turbines, with an investment of between 25 and 30 million euros.
But it is at an impasse, as confirmed by company sources.
The idea was that the energy supplied by the wind turbines would be poured into a substation that the electrical network was going to build near the town.
But, although it was planned, at the moment, it has no date.
The solution would be to take the energy to another substation, but this one is about 40 kilometers away, which considerably increases the cost of transport.
So, even if the villarencos had said yes to the park, it probably would not have been possible to start building it.
The topics that are the subject of popular consultation are very diverse.
Since the change of dates of local festivities, as happened in Carcaixent (Valencia), Encinas Reales (Córdoba) or Trujillo (Cáceres), the change of name of the municipality that was voted in Santa María de Corcó (Barcelona) or Teulada (Alicante) or on the method of selective waste collection that was raised in several municipalities of Gipuzkoa.
In Muro de Alcoi (Alicante, 9,300 inhabitants), it will be a referendum among the residents that decides the route of the Moorish and Christian entrances through the town.
And in the small Majorcan municipality of Consell it will also be the residents, through their votes at the ballot box, who decide whether to change the name of the municipal sports field.
In Beceite (Teruel, 541 inhabitants), the council of the minister authorized in 2019 the holding of a consultation after protests by the manager of a rural tourism establishment who demanded that the bells not ring between eleven at night and eight in the morning.
The vote, finally, will not be held because the employer has given up in his attempt that the ringing of the bells does not alter the night's rest.
Others were rejected.
Like the one raised more than 30 years ago in the Valencian municipality of Cheste on the construction of a permanent speed circuit in its municipal area.
Or the one attempted in Oria (Almería), in which it was intended to decide whether the mayor should continue in office or resign.
The most notorious referendums in recent years were those held in Villanueva de la Serena and Don Benito (Badajoz) to decide on the merger of both towns.
Both towns gave their yes.
But in Vilar de Canes they prefer to flee from the stalking of the giants.