Benidorm claims to assume the management of the treatment, sanitation and purification of wastewater

The local government will raise to the plenary session next Monday a motion in which the Valencian Courts and the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FVMP) are once again requested to modify the current legislation regarding the financing of purification facilities and the system of competences in the management of the Sanitation Canon so that local entities can carry it out in an adequate way and in compliance with the regulatory framework that is applicable to them.
This request was already approved on November 30, 2020 "and to date we have not received any response from the Department," said the Councilor for Water Cycle, José Ramón González de Zárate.
The mayor recalled that Benidorm pays 6.2 million annually for the Sanitation Canon, "while the maintenance cost of the treatment plant does not reach four million." This means, he continued, that “some 2.2 million remainder remain in the hands of the Public Entity for Wastewater Sanitation (EPSAR), which should be used to be in solidarity with the treatment plants of small municipalities and to improve their own Benidorm wastewater treatment plant. And that is what is not happening ”.
With current legislation, EPSAR must finance the operating and maintenance costs of the sanitation and purification infrastructures in Benidorm. "However, according to the calculations of the technicians, in the last ten years EPSAR has invested practically nothing in the city, only residual investments, while it has achieved a remainder of about 20 million" explained González de Zárate, who has had an impact in which at that time the City Council had to invest "more than three million between its own investments or those made by the concessionaire company."
"We do not know what this money from Benidorm has been spent on, but in the city for sure not" said the councilor, who also added that "that is why we want the sanitation legislation to be changed, so that the municipalities have something to say. ”.
In the opinion of the mayor, “it is not acceptable that situations of imbalance are generated derived from the fact that the prevailing needs of the facilities that are becoming obsolete are not met, or that the amounts are destined to obtain financial benefits, leaving Benidorm pending that it does not occur a polluting spill due to lack of maintenance or renovation of the existing facilities ”.
The proposal that will be taken to the plenary session underlines that in these years “important imbalances” have been revealed in the financing of investments requested by the City Council with respect to the Canon applied to it.
In this sense, the Councilor for Water Cycle has given the example of the installation of a new pump in one of the pumping stations in Sierra Helada. "This machinery is key because if one fails, there could be uncontrolled dumping onto the beach," he warned.
Any serious error in the maintenance or in the operation of the facilities can cause the interruption of the elevation of the wastewater "so there would be no choice but to drive all the wastewater to the sea without any treatment." That is why the supply and installation of the new 350 kW centrifugal wastewater pump has been contracted for stations numbers 2 and 3 "and one of the existing ones remains in reserve."