Four councilors of the Nerva PP leave the party in protest at the landfill that the Board refuses to close

After 25 years of toxic waste, the residents of Nerva (5,300 inhabitants, Huelva) have demonstrated countless times to try to close their landfill, an exceptional case in Spain due to the extreme proximity of the installation to the population, less than 700 meters .

Among the most indignant residents, since last Thursday the four Popular Party councilors have stood out, who, fed up with the Junta's promises to close the hazardous waste dump, have said enough and will soon abandon their minutes in protest at the inaction of their colleagues party in the regional government.

“The environmental policy of the Board is disastrous.

They have been dizzying the partridge for four years to keep us entertained.

They are the economic powers that control everything and we will not be the puppets, we enter politics for the future of Nerva”.

José Antonio Lozano, leader of the popular group in the Huelva town, is furious and disappointed with his party and the succession of false promises that he has received since 2019, when the PP took the reins of the Andalusian Junta with supposed airs of change .

The four councilors who are now throwing in the towel have met to achieve the long-awaited closure with the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, the PP of Huelva and the company DSM.

The company seeks to prolong the life of the landfill by several years, a reason for conflict with the population of Nerva, tired after a quarter of a century of bad odors and the potential danger of spills and environmental contamination.

The Nerva landfill was the center of controversy a year ago when the bulk transfer of 18,800 tons of shot from Montenegro to Seville in ships came to light after bordering Doñana along the Guadalquivir and then in trucks to Nerva.

These trips highlighted international waste traffic, which is legal, and how Spain receives much more dangerous industrial waste than it exports (923,299 tons imported for 101,077 exported), with Nerva as one of its main sewers.

Aerial view of the waste facilities in Nerva, last Friday.PACO PUENTES

“They set up the facility deceiving the people and Nerva has only had broken promises since 1995, when the facility was going to be the salvation of the people and has only given 30 jobs.

They deceived the miners to get them out of the first demonstrations against the dump”.

What will happen now with the PP?

"Well, the ballot is not easy, but when they called us last time I made it clear that we were leaving," explains Lozano about his shared decision with Jerónimo Delgado, Remedios Cid and José Manuel Flores.

The PSOE governs the City Council with seven councilors, four have the PP and two IU, but Lozano speaks of the "dozens of votes" that he lacked in the last elections to make a clamp and unseat the Socialists at the hands of IU.

The local Board of the PP of Nerva asked the provincial leadership of the party for a closing date and proposed the limit of 2026, but it was rejected: "There is no intention of closing the landfill in the short or medium term, despite the topographic report of 2014 that evidenced the next filling of the facilities, including the screed", reported the formation in a statement.

The president of the PP in Huelva, Manuel Andrés González, criticizes the departure of his councillors: “They are completely wrong, the Government of Juan Manuel Moreno is working to close the landfill.

The relay is normal, it happens in all towns, ”he comments after adding that he has known about the decision for more than a year.

The future of the landfill is uncertain, but for the moment it continues to receive waste from abroad and national territory, some 100,000 tons of toxic waste per year, according to calculations by the local PP.

DSM's intention is to expand its capacity, for which it has asked the Nerva City Council (PSOE) for a planning license.

The Consistory is now studying the way to deny it because its objective is the closure, but the last time it opposed it, the Andalusian Superior Court of Justice (TSJA) forced it to grant it.

Aerial view of Nerva.

PACO BRIDGES

“We tried to reject the license, but the Board is in profile and leaves us at the feet of the horses.

Now phase two and three would come, which would be another 25 years without compensation in return ”, criticizes the socialist mayor of Nerva, José Antonio Ayala.

In parallel to the extension requested from the City Council, DSM has asked the Board for a second authorization to "improve its internal activity", according to sources from the Ministry of Sustainability, which ensures that this transformation does not imply an increase in the landfill.

"We work on an orderly closure, always respecting legal certainty and current regulations," Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, Sustainability Minister, argued last Friday.

However, the Executive still does not give a closing date.

For the Commission for the closure of the landfill now, made up of local associations and all parties except the PP, the closure ordered by the Board is "a smokescreen, not being a technical or legal term."

Gil Vélez street, in the Huelva town of Nerva.

PACO BRIDGES

Last summer, the Ministry of Ecological Transition canceled the shipment from Montenegro to Nerva and fined the French company responsible after an inspection of its ships by the Civil Guard.

A month ago, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, met with the mayor and the anti-dump platform to show their support for the closure and promised to visit Nerva before the end of April.

For ecologists, the installation represents a growing danger with the accident in Zaldibar (Bizkaia) in the rear-view mirror.

“The landfill must be closed because in some places it exceeds the level of the breakwater wall and the mountain in the terrace system has no support, it is exposed to the elements.

With torrential rains, the waste will be filtered by dragging, as happened in Zaldibar”, laments Juan Romero, spokesman for Ecologistas en Acción in Huelva.

Romero criticizes that this landfill carries out "pure and hard" burial, when the European directive gives priority to inerting and requires the best available techniques to avoid "the mere burial of dangerous substances".

Given the level of clogging of the landfill, several mayors of towns in the south of Badajoz have held meetings with DSM and other companies to install a toxic garbage dump in their municipal area, but for the moment the negotiations have not materialized due to the neighborhood opposition, among other reasons. .