Ciudadanos: “We cannot wait for the next plenary session to explain why Ramblars continues to burn”
Smoke still fills the valley 40 days after the fire started and no investigation has been confirmed into the causes of it.
An image of the fire, captured this Thursday, from Calle India, parallel to the Carretera de Jesús Pobre.
Thursday 30th December 2021 – XÀBIA AL DÍA with Mike Smith
The spokesperson for Ciudadanos in Xàbia, Enrique Escrivá, has considered that the residents of the municipality cannot wait “for the next plenary session to hear the next episode of explanations from the government team” about the fire at the Ramblars waste transfer plant.
Escrivá makes this consideration in the statement in which he summarizes his intervention in the plenary session and in it he recalls that these explanations “are shoehorned into the questions” formulated by the opposition parties, questions that both he and Compromís asked in the last plenary session.
According to Escrivà, questions such as, “how long will Ramblars continue to burn, what is the roadmap to minimize the repercussions of the fire, the possible toxicity of the smoke derived from combustion or the alternatives to put out a fire that takes more than five weeks are first-class explanations of transparency, which all xabieros have the right to know publicly and in full, not in dribs and drabs”.
He explained that in the last Town Planning and Works Commissions -where councilors can ask about municipal news and whose content usually does not transcend publicly – the councilor for Services did not attend nor have there been extraordinary calls that would allow them to ask further, that there are no “questions and answers“.
For this reason Escrivá has announced that he has submitted a series of requests to access the documentation and information related to the transfer plant and the relationship with the Council in order to clarify “what actions have been carried out by both the Council and the company in charge of the management of the Ramblars plant since the fire broke out, as well as the prevention measures adopted to avoid the incident”.
In fact, he recalled that a month ago his demand for an investigation was batted away due to the fact that the investigation had to be carried out by the Guardia Civil. And he added “we must know what has been done, not only to prevent and extinguish the fire, but also to know its origin and avoid the environmental repercussions and the health of people that can be affected a fire of these characteristics, which has burned for practically 40 days“.
In addition, Escrivá has highlighted the need to clarify whether there was any irregularity in the operation of the waste transfer plant prior to this last fire.
The councillor concluded his statement by pointing out that “it should not be that the residents of Xàbia, Gata and Benitachell have to cover their noses every time they pass within five kilometres of Ramblars and that after more than a month has elapsed since the beginning of the fire, no explanation of it has been given, nor can we investigate and know the causes and consequences of a sad episode for Xàbia like this one“.
