The residents of Cortegana (Huelva) saw in 2007 how the pine forests that cover the Llanos del Murteral and the Umbría de Alcornocosa were saved from becoming a tourist complex with 67 chalets and an airfield thanks to having special protection. Now, those same trees are condemned to perish, cut down to make way for a 15 million m3 mining waste pond. During the journey between both projects, a reclassification was carried out as a result of an agreement reached in 2013 between a mining company and the mayor of the municipality that removed that special protection from the pine forests.
A little more than a decade after the signing of that document, the mining company has just obtained environmental authorization for its waste deposit – signed by senior official Pedro Yórquez, brother of a company worker. In this regard, MATSA states that “the AAU authorization process has been carried out in accordance with current legislation, so there is no conflict of interest or incompatibility in its administrative processing.” Also that the worker’s brother of the delegate “has not had any participation in the construction project of the waste management facility to which the AAU refers. “Its functions have no relation to said project.”
For his part, that mayor, José Enrique Borrallo, is the current general director of Protected Natural Spaces of Andalusia.
The journey that goes from a judge’s order paralyzing a luxury tourism project to the environmental authorization for a hazardous mining waste deposit on the same soil has several stops.
‘The pilots’ town’
When in 2004 the Turística Plus Ultra company planned to build a tourist complex in Valdelamusa, it had the support of the Cortegana City Council so that, in 2006, the municipal plenary session gave the go-ahead to build 67 chalets and prepare an airfield (already existing ) in the pine forests. It would be called The pilots’ town.
But the classification of the land as non-developable with special protection imposed procedures that were not followed. The Board denounced it, the judge paralyzed the project – as reported The Country– and the Advisory Council of Andalusia ended up annulling the file. There would be no complex.
Time passed and a new idea emerged to use those lands: the expansion of the MATSA mining facilities in the town. There were two pitfalls. On the one hand, the protection of the pine forests that had taken effect in 2007 and on the other, that the land did not belong to MATSA but to another company: Piritas de Huelva.
Agreement “to make projects possible and viable”
For the first, an agreement was designed between the Cortegana City Council and the mining company. For the second, MATSA began a negotiation to purchase the land. The agreement was signed on September 5, 2013, when the mayor was José Enrique Borrallo Romero (PP). Borrallo’s written commitment to classify the land “to make Matsa’s projects possible and viable,” as stated in the agreement, came even before the mining company acquired the land that was intended to be rearranged – that operation was not closed until 2015–. Borrallo justified himself by saying that “there was a tacit agreement.”
The compensation that MATSA had to satisfy, according to this agreement, included that 30% of the new local hires made were from the municipality of Cortegana both in the construction and operation phases of the facilities.
At the same time, MATSA had to take care of various “repairs of public roads, sports and recreational spaces” for an amount of 130,147.9 euros. Of course, posters would be placed that included the legend: “With the collaboration of Matsa”, the clauses specified.
In addition, the company had to provide the City Council with an ambulance for 24,400 euros and a multi-tipper truck for 41,140 euros. It was also included in the text that “among the actions that Matsa undertakes to carry out, in the same way as it has been doing in previous years, are sponsorships of municipal Associations and municipal events, which it undertakes to maintain over the years.” of validity of this agreement.” The amount “will be at least” 14,000 euros per year.
On the other hand, the agreement established that “this City Council is committed to drafting the necessary planning documents to make the Matsa Projects possible and viable in the municipality of Cortegana.” The agreement dictates that the mining company undertakes to “collaborate in the drafting” of the municipality’s new urban planning and also grants it control over how it is being done, since it admits that the company can “verify the drafting of the aforementioned planning document, in at any time, at the simple request of MATSA.”
At the fiscal level, this agreement committed to bringing to the municipal plenary session a 75% bonus on taxes and building permit fees for the mining facilities and to draft an ordinance in three months that would reduce it from 10% to 7% ( on the amount of the investment) the compensation that MATSA had to pay under the Urban Planning Law for the exceptional use of non-developable land.
After the modification of the PGOU
The General Urban Planning Plan of Cortegana was finally modified in a Plenary Session on December 12, 2013. The report of the current project for the construction of the pond indicates that the chosen lands are non-developable lands of a rural or natural nature with a use of timber pine forest.
Once the modification of the PGOU was agreed, the acquisition of the land took more than a year to complete. In 2019, the municipal elections changed the political color of the Cortegana City Council, which became governed by the PSOE and IU. In November 2020, that City Council ordered various MATSA works to be paralyzed and sealed for, they said, lacking a license. In 2021, the Sandfire company acquired Matsa and in May 2023 the following elections returned the mayor’s office to the Popular Party.
After the signing of the agreement, José Enrique Borrallo remained mayor of Cortegana until May 2019 – from January to April of that year he was also a PP senator by regional designation. He then remained as a councilor of that municipality until, in January 2021, the Junta de Andalucía appointed him delegate in Huelva of the Ministry of Sustainable Development. On August 11, 2022, he became general director of Protected Natural Spaces, leaving the position of provincial delegate of that department. Less than a month later, Pedro Yórquez Sancha held that same position. Two years later, in August 2024, Yórquez Sancha authorized the mining waste pond on those lands.
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