I was the Autonomous Secretary of the Environment of the Generalitat in the first Valencian Government of the Botànic, back in 2015. Let me tell you.
When I came to office I had no experience in institutional politics, but I did know the territorial protection measures to be developed since we had committed them in the electoral campaign. The decisions had to be in favor of biodiversity, adaptation and mitigation of Climate Change and taking care of people’s lives. In case of doubt, moving away from the territorial predation tinged with corruption that the Popular Party had perpetrated for 20 years was going to be an infallible guide.
I found on my table, for example, the construction of a macro shopping center, called Puerto Mediterráneo, in the Les Moles forest, in Paterna. They even said that there were 1.5 billion investments and 8,000 jobs. Essential, they claimed, for the economy of the region and the entire Valencian Country. The PP pressed with everything for it to be done. The mayor of Paterna, from the PSOE, did the same. The main Valencian newspapers repeatedly accused me, in a thousand different ways, of environmental fundamentalism.
Without going into further considerations, the alleged work was built largely on the Endolça ravine, whose overflow had already flooded the area of the Valencia Trade Fair more than once. Nothing was happening. It was planned to divert it. It had been done in other places. It was not a dangerous ravine. It would be relocated next to the CV-35 highway, the Pista de Ademuz, one of the main access and exit routes to Valencia, and that was it. The new shopping center involved waterproofing more than 1.5 million square meters. From forest to cement. In flood zone. I received pressure from the Botànic government itself, “we are going to lose the elections because of this,” verbatim. But, finally, thanks to the good work and good sense of a group of officials, the project was stopped. Today, Les Moles continue to be a forest that, without reaching the ecological importance of the Amazon rainforest or the Siberian taiga, plays its role in the metropolitan area, allowing those who approach its paths to enjoy nature and protecting the inhabitants of the area. By the way, the Valencian economy has not collapsed and the Botànic won the elections again.
I also had to deal with a road that the PP was planning to build within the Turia Natural Park to divert traffic passing through the small and beautiful town of Pedralba. It ran through a space of just 400 meters between the Turia River and the houses in the western part of the town. It was going parallel and in height. It didn’t seem very sensible. A Natural Park is not the most suitable place for a new road, nor to create a cement barrier just behind the center of the town and, there being other areas far from the river where it could be done, it was advisable to find a different location. So we did not facilitate the construction of that new infrastructure that, by the way, the Provincial Council had designed in the time of Alfonso Rus, remember, the one who counted bills at the rate of “one thousand, two thousand, three… two million peles.” I had to endure a PP campaign that included physical threats. The Provincial Council, already in socialist hands, did not look for alternatives and did everything it could to have the road built through the Park. Even the most senior members of the Compromís leadership, the group in which I was a member, demanded that I not get in the way. I held on as best I could. The road, in the end, was not built.
On October 29, Pedralba was one of the towns most seriously affected by DANA that devastated Valencia. Thanks to the fact that the work was stopped, the flood was not found just behind Acequia Street, the most important in the town, an immense wall topped by a road that would have acted as a dam for all the fallen water, plus what It came to them when the Chiva ravine burst. With that wall the town would have become a kind of immense bathtub with no space to drain. So far, there have been four people dead in Pedralba. They are still missing. With more obstacles, more cement and more waterproofing, who knows what the balance would have been.
I could tell you more similar cases in which we had to deal with pressure so that we would not refuse to carry out works that were pure predation and a danger to many people. Always with similar arguments: there is no big deal, corrective measures will be sought, stopping it harms the economy, building generates wealth and reasons like that. I ended up being fired just over two years after taking office. The Botànic had little patience, little endurance. The PP celebrated it and the great employers had a party.
Now, after the recent DANA floods, floods that were more than a tsunami, everything is wailing and tearing of clothes. So much drama, so many deaths. When tragedy breaks out there are misfortunes that are inevitable, but just as if the Generalitat had reacted as it did on October 29, many deaths could have been avoided, if the urban planning and protection policies for the territory and people put life as a priority. before the economy and people before businesses we could prevent a lot of suffering. It doesn’t have to be said, it has to be done. The stock market or life.
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