The Government considers "incomprehensible" that the Board now authorizes a tourist macroproject with a golf course in front of Doñana

The controversy in the surroundings of Doñana does not cease, but this time on its southeast flank and not for illegal crops, but for the development of a tourist macroproject in front of the protected area that would include a golf course and up to 300 homes. The Junta de Andalucía has approved the strategic environmental declaration of a modification of the urban planning of the City Council of Trebujena (Cádiz) in which this project is contemplated. And the central government has harshly criticized that endorsement.

"It seems very strange to think that houses can be built in flood zones now that climate change leads us to more extreme phenomena such as torrential rains," said the Ministry for Ecological Transition. "It would be incomprehensible for the Board to authorize golf courses and tourism macroprojects at the gates of Doñana at the time of drought that Spain is going through and especially the Guadalquivir basin," added the department led by the third vice president, Teresa Ribera.

But this environmental authorization is subject to "obtaining the favorable pronouncement of the basin body", that is, the Gualdalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (CHG), according to the text approved by the Ministry of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economyof Andalusia on April 12. Asked about this matter on Tuesday by journalists, the spokesman of the Andalusian Executive and Minister of Sustainability, Ramón Fernández Pacheco, has acknowledged that this issue has now been left in the hands of the CHG, dependent on the central government. "If it issued a report in the negative sense, it would cause the environmental statement to decline," said the counselor, who criticized that the confederation has been asked since 2020 up to three times to pronounce on this modification without there having been a response.

But, despite the absence of that response, the Board decided to continue with the processing and grant the environmental guarantee subject to mid-April, just when the controversy over the legalization of irrigation promoted by PP and Vox in the Andalusian Parliament acquired greater dimension. Sources from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition have maintained on Tuesday that the confederation is finalizing the report on this urban modification. "We cannot announce the final result of the CHG report that is not yet finished," they point out in the department of Ribera. But the ministry points to the "difficult fit" that has "a similar project with the flood risk plans" of the area. Because the area of 2.33 million square meters in which this action would be developed is an old desiccated marsh. CHG sources assure this newspaper that they are finalizing the document, which will be released in the coming weeks.

Another aspect to be studied by the confederation is the availability of water resources. Although the report of the Board of April 12 already indicates that "there is availability of water resources".

Yes. She has gone crazy. https://t.co/YrukVgkZx8

— Teresa Ribera 🌹 (@Teresaribera) May 16, 2023

EL PAÍS has asked the Ministry of Sustainability the reason why the environmental authorization has been granted without the report that conditions all the others, which is that of the CHG. But the Board has not responded to that question. This same doubt is shared by environmental associations. "This is like in the case of the irrigation law, the Board grants irrigation, but then it has to be the CHG that authorizes it," explains Juan Clavero, spokesman for Ecologists in Action. "Here it is the same, the Board says that urbanization is viable, but who has the last word is the central government, opening another front," he adds.

Ecologists in Action has questioned on Tuesday the validity of the endorsement granted by the Board. "The environmental declaration approved by the Board is totally illegal, since it does not have the mandatory report on flood risk in the area," warned this organization, which has been in the file for years. "Its effects on the EU Natura 2000 Network, which includes the Guadalquivir estuary and Doñana, have not been evaluated, and none of the 900 allegations presented against the project have been answered," added this NGO through a statement. The environmental organization has also stressed that "the technicians and heads of the administrations that are approving or reporting favorably this project could be incurring in negligent behavior, when not in alleged documentary falsification and prevarication, which could have criminal responsibilities ".

This project dates back to 2003, when a well-known Belgian developer in the area, Bernard Devos, signed an agreement with the City Council of Trebujena by which he undertook to pay around 5.5 million euros when the modification of the PGOU was approved, varying the qualification from rustic land to developable, to make the construction of the project possible. The economic crisis buried the project until the previous mayor, Jorge Rodríguez, revived it in April 2019 —by submitting to public information the Strategic Impact Environmental Study presented by the new promoter of the project (Costa Guadalquivir), after having addressed in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017 other reforms of the PGOU to make it compatible with the macroproject—, putting on a war footing the environmental organizations, the unions and a good part of the social organizations, who did not understand how the councilor of a town that has always been considered the bastion of the United Left in the province of Cádiz folded to the economic interests of the urban developers.

On the table was a high-end macro-urbanization, on the first line of Doñana and with an extension of more than 2,000 hectares, almost triple that of this Cadiz municipality of 7,000 inhabitants. In addition, it was going to consume 800,000 cubic meters of water, "the same amount that is consumed in Trebujena," says Clavero. The then councilor argued that the project would revitalize the economy of a municipality that, as stated in the justification for the modification of the PGOU included in the report of the Board, "currently presents regressive growth rates and that may find in tourism development an opportunity to reinvest its current trend. "

Some arguments that did not understand the environmental organizations and associations that presented more than 800 allegations that were never debated because Rodriguez decided to postpone the plenary session in which they should be studied to "initiate a process of dialogue between the parties." However, thanks to the offices sent by the Environmental Prosecutor's Office to the City Council to be informed of the public information process and allegations of the modification of the PGOU, it was learned that this modification had been sent in October 2019 to the Delegation of the Ministry of Environment of the Board to carry out the study on the ordinary strategic environmental assessment of the macroproject.

The current mayor, opposed to the project

"That report should have been returned by the Board because it was not even approved in full," says Clavero. The new mayor, Ramón Galán, also of IU, has disassociated himself from the macro-urbanization that the Board has put back on the front page. "This is a project that has been processed for 20 years in the City Council and the climate reality then is not what it is now. It's out of place, it's extemporaneous. We are in favor of other types of projects, such as the regeneration of marshes that we are already doing and that there we are hand in hand with the Board, "he told EL PAÍS, reports Jesús Cañas.

Visibly upset by the controversy generated by the Andalusian Government, Galán insists that "they are making an effort to explain all this in the town." "The City Council can not refuse to process something that the promoters ask, because we would be incurring a prevarication. We believe that the competent Administration, the Board, is the one that has to position itself on whether it is compatible with something that would be done today, "he adds.

"Here there is no coincidence, but causality due to the open war of the irrigation of Doñana and the electoral campaign. This declaration of the Board obeys an electoral interest, "says the mayor. Regarding the absence of the CHG report, he warns: "It is not that it does not come out, but that it should have come out complete and it has not. In addition, it goes without answering the allegations of environmentalists. There is a clear interest at the moment."

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