"In the early days the lack of information was very pronounced, and then it is being very limited – it is 15 February, thousands of people have gathered within the landfill that burns in three columns of Eibar, Ermua and Elgeta. The news we've had day by day, rather than relax, has made us more troubling. We therefore call on the institutions to give us concrete and transparent information. We call on the Government for a concrete action plan. The medical examinations of nearby neighbours should be carried out as soon as possible. It is essential to demand responsibility from those who are responsible,” they have been applauded by Eitzaga’s neighbours who are on the stage. The atmosphere in Eitzaga has become hot again, with some problems. People of all colors and ages are placed with face masks, not only symbolically, but to protect themselves from polluted air. “Zaldibar argitu!” is the most repeated cry, but along the way there has been no request for resignation of Iñaki Arriola and Iñigo Urkullu. Before proceeding further, it is appropriate to report on events from the outset.

The 112 collided with the emergency phone and contacted 112 of Sos Deiak. It is Thursday 6 February, shortly after 16:00. The drivers on the A8 motorway are the ones who call the most. They say that the mountain has fallen into Zaldibar and that it has cut traffic in both directions. What happened? Emergency services have been speedily dispatched. At first it has been reported that the six people working in the landfill are missing and that there may be some author missing from the waste leap. Subsequently, they learned that some missing workers had gone to coffee and that two of them had disappeared: Alberto Sololuze and Joaquín Beltrán. According to ARGIA, two Civil Protection technicians are coordinating the rescue plan and the works have started in two areas: some, at the top of the landfill, in search of missing workers, and others, at the bottom, in search of people trapped in some vehicle with a waste jump on the highway.

Between 20:30 and 21:00, Osalan's technician from the Basque Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has come to the scene of the crime. Firefighters and agents of the Ertzaintza, with dogs, are working on rescue work in the affected area. Osalan's technician has started talking to the landfill workers, what's happened, what's happened in the landfill -- and rowing, all the way, there's asbestos, thousands of tons. People working on rescue work have been working for hours with the mineral that has killed without preparing for it. How is it possible that neither Civil Protection, nor the company, nor the Department of the Environment, nor anyone has said anything about asbestos accumulated during the hours after the accident? In an interview given to the Berria newspaper on 13 February, the firemen reported that they were not informed that they were going to a landfill. And much less the presence of asbestos. The Basque Government already knew that they were there, but no one took care that the workers were expelled in that way.

7 February. Friday has dawned. According to the Official Gazette of Gipuzkoa, work was stopped at 1:00 hours due to the finding of asbestos. The scandal is starting to grow big. As explained by the Transport Deputy of Bizkaia, Imanol Pradales, in Radio Euskadi, after an hour and a half of a stop, the appropriate equipment has been replaced and work has continued all night to unblock the freeway. I got it. It is clear that it is the Member of Parliament for transport, who has the competence, who is mainly talking about the motorway, who has undermined the appearance of asbestos and wanted the disappearance of two workers. During Friday morning, thousands of vehicles moved along the motorway in the sense of Bilbao. At the landfill, at the top, the rescue team is standing. The operational rescue is stopped for 14 hours and no further explanations have been provided and records have been re-established. No one prepares society for bad news. Political leaders are arguing more about whether or not they are going to advance the elections. The relatives of the two missing workers have begun to raise their voices to express their indignation in the media. The head of the lower operation, i.e. the motorway, is the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, and in particular the Member of Parliament for Transport. But who is responsible for the operation above? You don't see anyone.

The company that manages the landfill is called Verter Recycling 2002, and the Basque Government knew that asbestos, a carcinogenic agent, was accumulating in it. José Ignacio Barinaga Eguia has been manager for years and in 2017 declared 379,689 tons of asbestos, in 2018 it was 540,667 and in 2019 it was 510,994. This company that received the Integrated Environmental Authorisation has had an obligation to inform the Government of what has been thrown out there. The rescue work has resumed this Friday afternoon, although within a few hours it has been suspended by the fire brigade. It darkens and the earth is unstable. Tension increases, Sololuze and Beltrán are critical hours to survive. No head of the Basque Government has left the street and has arrived at the weekend. Neighbours will wake up the next day with even more black news: on Friday night a fire has been declared at the top of the landfill and the fire brigade cannot shut it down.

In the coming days, the wind has taken a lot of toxic smoke. What is smoking? Many mention the smell of plastic. A judgment of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country in 2015 found that the landfill had collected at least temporarily hazardous materials, without authorisation and without notification: polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Environmentalists in Action have warned that there may also be lindane. In 2017, Zaldibar collected 2,000 tons of slag from the Zabalgarbi incinerator in Bilbao. All of this and a lot of things we don't know are in that cocktail that has become an outdoor incinerator without filters.

Citizens are being informed of the picture through media research. In the first few days, the main political leaders of the Basque Government are in other tasks. The fires can be of three types: at one height, at ground and underground level. The latter are the most difficult to turn off. As if it were a carbonera, the fire from the landfill makes its place and the whole environment is burning. There are also underground fires in the world that have burned for months. After a week of ignition, we will see if it rains willingly and if the trash gets heavy, if the trash will not fall back down the trash that the fire is slowly emptying.

In 1997 landfill was banned at Zaldibar

It is not yesterday morning’s story of the landfill that caused the scandal in the Eitzaga district. Although it was inaugurated in 2011, it is necessary to go back two decades to reach its beginning. Many neighbours in this neighbourhood of Zaldibar had already complained about the landfills there. They were out of control, they were out of control, as the neighbours denounced.

The spokesman for Herri Batasuna at the Ordinary Plenary Session of 25 April 1996, Gaizka Zabarte, has denounced that in the minutes of the Government Committee it has been read that the City Hall is in the process of opening a new landfill, without closing the two previous landfills. It denounces that no information has been given to the opposition councillors and that the City Hall should not promote any private landfill. “Landfill is a business, a business that no one controls,” said PNV Mayor Blanca Onaindia, as stated in the Minutes.

The opening of this landfill is in any case an initiative of the City Hall, according to the HB councillors on 8 May last the technicians of the Environmental Department of the Basque Government. The Government has received the processing carried out by the City Hall, and if this is correct, the Integrated Environmental Authorisation aims to lay down the conditions: construction, control measures and recovery. The City Council has the last word, although the technicians have made it clear that nothing can be said. The Management Plan for Inert Waste developed by the Basque Government in 1994 textually collected the needs of the Duranguesado and Debabarrena: “No more landfills are needed in the next 20 years.”

Aware of this, the forthcoming plenary session at Zaldibar will again be very tense. On 23 May, the Independent Group (GI) and Herri Batasuna, led by pp, have tabled motions against the new landfill and the PNV spokesman in the Eitzaga district, Pedro Bildosola, has also filed a motion against the opening. In the City Hall of Zaldibar PNV and PSE have 6 votes in common; GI 3 and HB 2. Councillor Bildasola, for his part, has broken party discipline in this matter and the PNV-PSE tandem has been left with 5, getting the majority of the opposition. The plenary session of the City of Zaldibar has agreed to revoke the approval of the Government Board for the implementation of the landfill, to take the necessary measures to prevent the landfill, to ban landfills in the municipality and to condition the transfer of waste generated therein to the pooled landfill in Berriz. On 30 January 1997, the following measures will be taken in plenary session: NN.SS. allow the amendment of the rule by prohibiting landfills of waste in the municipality. The mayor is Blanca Onaindia from the PNV.

Subsequently, the issue has given way in the political debate at the municipal level. On 11 December 1997, in the Extraordinary Plenary, the Municipal Government of the PNV and the PSE succeeded in repealing the agreement that annulled the approval of the activity dossier of the new landfill, which has now been respected by the spokesman and councillor of the PNV Bildosola. On 30 April 1998, Herri Batasuna will table a motion for the Eitzaga, Sallabente and Olarreaga neighbours to hold a referendum on waste dumps. The PNV and the PSE voted against; GI, HB and Bildosola voted in favour, so the motion has been adopted. The City Hall has never done this popular consultation.

Three months later, on 30 July, as recorded in the Minutes of the Plenary Session, the following happened: “As soon as the issues included in the list are analyzed, the Secretary reads the letter sent by the Zaldibar Municipal Board of the PNV, with which he informs the Corporation that Blanca Onaindia will henceforth be the spokesperson for the PNV at Zaldibar.” Bildosola has stated that he was officially not notified of anything. Landfills are prohibited in the locality, but based on the landfill that the company Verter Recycling is going to open, ropes continue to be pulled.

Criticised political management

Let's go back to 2020. It is 4 days since the Zaldibar landfill disaster and the event is taking on a political dimension. The crisis is large, affecting many departments of the Basque Government: Department of Environment, Department of Safety, Department of Labor and Justice and Department of Health Who is the coordinator? Above all, there is only lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, who, in compliance with the emergency care law, has that function. It will not. Instead, until Monday, the lehendakari has announced that it will send a delegation of second-line politicians to respond to the citizens. But at least, who is ultimately responsible for the top operation of the landfill?

The order of appearance of the first days of the political representatives says a lot about wanting to downplay the issue: The Vice-Minister for the Environment is the first person to appear publicly on behalf of the Basque Government on Saturday 8 February, Elena Moreno. Try to subdue gravity to the issue. On the same day, Josu Erkoreka has uploaded a smiling photo to social media at the top of Anboto, and he has raised the criticism he has generated due to the floods, in the afternoon he will withdraw it without saying anything. They start to convey nervousness. In the morning, another politician from the second line appeared before the media as Vice Security Advisor Josu Zubiaga. The anger and pressure of many citizens is being felt on social media on Monday morning.

The following are the Environmental and Safety Advisors, Iñaki Arriola and Estefanía Beltrán de Heredia. The hastag #NonDagoUrkullu collects hundreds of messages and the lehendakari has finally left the street at 16:00 on Monday. At a 40-minute press conference, he announced that he had no intention of talking about the Zaldibar emergency, which is ahead of the elections and that the Basque Parliament was dissolved. Urkullu responded angry to Iñaki Iriondo, from Gara, who asked him about the issue, and told him that he will not go to the landfill at least for the Twitter campaigns. Two days later, he will be pressured to appear at Zaldibar and in the coming days public television will show that he is at a crisis table, although he will be absent from the meeting for 30 minutes.

The Basque Government is in a storm of criticism. The control and inspection of projects with Integrated Environmental Authorization, which already had this landfill, is the responsibility of the Department of Environment Ambiente.Ademas, the following words from Moreno have created tumulto: Last Sunday, he declared that the landfill was about to be punished. Despite the fact that it was a prior inspection by the Basque Government, the Environmental Department found in October 2019 "serious irregularities" in the landfill of Eitzaga. There are many people who no longer believe, if corrective or penal measures have not been imposed until February, why believe that they would be punished?

From then on, events will be accelerated: It is becoming apparent that the Basque Government is managing the issue, but fires are on both sides. To cite a few examples, the Ertzainas have disseminated a photograph of the Iurreta police station in the suit of the Ertzainas who have worked with asbestos in the soil, put in a plastic bag and in a paper "sealed, with risk of contamination of asbestos". The firefighters in Gipuzkoa have denounced that their trucks have not been cleaned after travelling between asbestos. Indignation has begun to give rise to the crisis and many denounce the fact that the Basque Government is left large and the lack of information.

This crisis has put a rather quick question on the table: Are the emergency systems of the Basque Government prepared to deal with a situation like the present one? The helicopter to quell the fire has come from the Spanish province of Cantabria, an expert for the Basque Government who has assessed the state of the landfill has come from the Netherlands and analyzed the analytical data of the air in Madrid. It is a situation with political implications. At the same time, the Basque Government has also received criticism from Spanish amateurs of the announcement by El Mundo that Lakua refused on the first day the aid offered by the Spanish Army for the rescue, consisting of helicopters and dogs. The last scandal, after spending the whole week saying that “air quality is good”, has erupted tonight when the Department of Health has declared that the amount of dioxins and furans in the area is 40-50 times higher than that of urban centres. Neighbours in the area are advised to close the windows and not engage in street sports, and as a sign of the seriousness of the situation, the match between Eibar and Real Sociedad has also been suspended in communicative terms. Many ask whether it is acceptable to work on the street if they recommend not to do sport.

Open when they illegalized to the left abertzale

Let's go back. The times of Lizarra-Garazi have come and passed quickly. Subsequently, the Abertzale left has been illegalized by the Spanish Political Parties Act (LEC). This has had many consequences, even on the subject we are dealing with.

In 2002 he was no longer mayor Blanca Onaindia, but Igor Barrenetxea-Arando of the PNV. The party will reform the landfill plan abandoned five years earlier, and will work on foot until it opens. First, on 28 November, the partial amendment of the Subsidiary Rules governing the use of landfills, landfills and land conditioners will be adopted. This day, the ban on landfill sites in the Eitzaga district of Gipuzkoa will be approved. In the minutes one can read the protest of the councillor of Batasuna Jon Azagirre, in which it is said that until then they have had three landfill sites, that the promoter of one of them has made illegal landfill and that this person is now promoting another landfill. Furthermore, it denounces that the City Council cannot sell as a positive measure because “the aim is to give the promoter a free runway” and will harm the environment, as demonstrated in the Munikola landfill. In addition, the GI which had previously been against the landfill will change its vote and reproached Councilor Benito Paco for committing fraud by advocating a ban on opening more landfills in the electoral programme and holding a referendum and voting against on the decisive day.

The debate in this plenary session at Zaldibar is exciting. The record is fully legible, we will transcribe some fragments and bring them to these pages translated into Basque. The debate between the mayor and the councillor of Herri Batasuna is as follows:

D. Mayor explains that he does not know where the representatives of Batasuna see the possibility of opening new landfills, when it is clear that the City Hall has no possibility of controlling landfills, so the possibility of creating an activity around inert waste, which is controlled by the Basque Government, and there is also a difference between landfills and inert landfills. In the latter the company must provide the certificate of what it will throw away. (…) The corrective measures of the Basque Government here are much stricter.

D. Zabarte says that it is nice to say that control will remain in the hands of the Basque Government, when until now it has been in its hands and yet when all [in the other landfills of the locality] have dumped the waste uncontrollably. Furthermore, it is enough to analyze the dossier to see what the history of these promoters is and to vote against, but the PNV depends on the promoters, they have always done what has been put on the tip of their nose and the PNV advocates their wishes.

The mayor explained that the promoters are not the same, that there is no more to see the statutes and does not understand the arguments that Batasuna has put on the table to oppose the proposal, when landfill is less restrictive and what is being done at that time is to determine where an inert landfill can be installed.

D. Zabarte responds that in all the landfills everything has been thrown and that they know that they are very indulgent with these people, and that the adaptation proposed by the Mayor gives them a free track, and that they also have no license to do the roads and that they are already illegalized along that path.

The Mayor has opposed the proposal on the grounds that they already have a work licence and that they have committed themselves to solving the problems in the other two landfill sites.

Zabarte tells him that Mr. Mayor seems to be a spokesman for the promoters and that the landfill of Etxebarri no longer has a solution and that they believe what they see.

The debate continued long and hard with the participation of the PSE and GI councillors, and was finally voted on. Result: 8 votes in favour of lifting the ban EAJ/EA 5 (Igor Barrenetxea-Arando, Jose Ignacio Mendiolagaray, Nerea Garitagoitia, Jose Martin Garitaonandia and Mertxe Aranburu), PSE-EE 2 (Angel Martin and Javier Zabtera) and opening;

This step will be completed at the regular plenary session of 27 March 2003 by provisionally approving the amendment of the Subsidiary Standard. The next step is to authorise the company Verter Recycling 2002 to start the works. The meeting will be held on 17 May 2007 in committee of the Government. The Abertzale left, illegalized, is no longer in the town hall. The granting of these licenses is the responsibility of the Mayor, in this case Igor Barrenetxea-Arando. Since, despite the authorisation, the works have not been started within the time allowed, a new authorisation has been granted to the company on 4 September 2008. The following year, Barrenetxea-Arando will leave the Mayor to join the Department of Infrastructure of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia: within a few months he will be appointed advisor and deputy secretary.

Finally, the PNV Mayor, Idoia Mendiolagarai, will sign on 6 May 2011 the business licence of the company Verter Recycling 2002, 16 days before Bildu won the election. On Friday, the mayor will meet at the Zaldibar Municipal Government Board, together with Nerea Garitagoitia (PNV) and Benito Paco (GI). Member of the Commission, Socialist Angel Martin (PSE-EE), did not attend the meeting. These policy makers shall unanimously approve the granting of a licence for the opening of non-hazardous waste activity in Eitzaga, "subject to the conditions and corrective measures established" by the Deputy Environmental Minister of the Basque Government. After obtaining this license, Verter Recycling opens the landfill and begins to deposit the trash in it.

Two weeks later, in the elections on 22 May 2011, the PNV lost its mayor and Bildu achieved an absolute majority in Zaldibar with 780 votes. The PNV obtained 324 votes, PSE 252 and pp 124. The mayor has received it from Arantza Baigorri, from the Abertzale coalition, but this landfill has already begun to accumulate waste irreversibly.

Many doubts in the air

Nine years have passed since 2011 and in that period it has collected the industrial waste that the Zaldibar landfill planned to collect in 35 years. Transporters called it "the hole", and several witnesses of them have explained these days in the press that thousands of tonnes of polluting waste have been dumped for years without any control. “We loaded the truck and took the trash there, without any recycling process. There I have seen everything: drums of corrosive, flammable materials, asbestos...”, says a transporter to Iñaki Petxarroman, from Berria. Did the Basque Government not take control measures?

The Department of the Environment of the Basque Government, as well as the spokesman, Josu Erkoreka, have said that the irregularities found in the landfill are not among the causes of the collapse. Thus, the Basque Government’s controls have not been able to predict the massacre that was about to cause thousands of tonnes of waste, so they have called into question the entire control system. It should also be pointed out that the controls carried out by the Basque Government on these types of companies are often pre-warned, as the ARGIA reader will read articles on other infrastructures such as incinerators.

Many ermuarras claim that this landfill was “all”. A number of witnesses have told ARGIA that they have come from countries such as Germany, France, Portugal and others, many times on a daily basis and in a completely covered manner. The carrier we have just mentioned says that there were 230 lorries coming in every day.

“We saw that it was rising and rising, and we said: that would one day collapse; but we didn’t believe or we didn’t want to believe and continue our daily lives,” said Juan Ramón, who lives in the area, from the hillside where the cleaner view of the landfill is located. “They have come from the Basque Government to make measurements, they have brought leeks, tomatoes, land and others. We told them what we should do when the smoke approaches our house, so unbearable it has been that in the first few days, we rule livestock, we close windows and shutters and we leave. The health technicians have told us that we did well, if it happens again, what we have to close, and if it cannot be, to leave us,” says José Luis, who sees the landfill in front of Eitza.

The Basque Government is evaluating air quality and the usual city parameters (SO2, CO, NO2, ozone, particulate matter – PM10 and PM2.5 – and benzene. ), which are not exceptional, repeat over and over again in the first week. Is it a lie? No, but what generates a misunderstanding in citizenship. In fact, according to the analyzed parameters, air quality was within normal range. But when the citizen hears the word "good air quality" and does not know what parameters the measurement analyzes and what excludes them, he understands that "what does not harm health is good". However, the measurements of dioxins and furans were carried out on February 9, not until the fifth day, and after being analyzed in the laboratories of Madrid, the results arrived on February 14. This has made many citizens feel "deceived," because the Department of the Environment was sending a message against what their senses were saying, saying that air quality was "good," and then studies give reason to citizen perception. What, then, are the health warnings of public institutions?

ELA denounced that Environment Vice-Minister Elena Moreno wanted to apply the “Law of Silence” by sending an email to the workers of her department and the Basque Water Agency in relation to what is happening in the Zaldibar landfill. “All information that is published outside the usual channels of this Vice-Office will be considered a personal responsibility,” the message said. The Basque Government has asked the baserritars in the area not to consume the vegetables of their vegetable gardens, and in the case of the houses that take water from nearby sources, not to drink tap water. To what extent are the thousands of people living around the Eitzaga landfill being infected? Depending on the direction of the wind, neighbors perceive a strong smell of burning in the throat.

The whirlwind of elections

The PNV-PSE tandem has launched the electoral campaign for the Basque Government in a complicated way. At first, Urkullu said that his goal was to reach an absolute majority, but it remains to be seen how it will affect the largest political crisis in the Urkullu Government in eight years. When it comes to sending this report to the printing press, lehendakari will have to give explanations in Parliament, in the face of an opposition that wants to jump to the neck. At the same time, Urkullu dissolved the Basque Parliament in anticipation of the elections, which has led the Government to leave the opposition without access to any information on this crisis.

They have set up a technical table to manage the crisis. There are many government departments, as well as mayors of Zaldibar, Ermua and Eibar. In the images, the Basque Government has pointed out that Urkullu is the coordinator of the crisis table and has shown his leadership. If that table has been up and running from the very beginning, according to Urkullu's statements, is it not implicitly assuming, from the very beginning of the waste leap, that it had the last responsibility of the superior operation that requires the coordination of several departments? The mayor of Elgeta has denounced that he has not been invited to the technical table, although he is 200 metres from the landfill. It would be a single representative of EH Bildu. In addition, there are those who have denounced that two members of the Zaldibar Crisis Bureau have to do with the incinerators lobby. The opposition parties have denounced in the Basque Parliament that the Basque Government does not give them information and that they are following the guidelines of the press.

It remains to be seen how this scandal will affect the new incinerator in Gipuzkoa. After the outbreak of the crisis, Olano and Asensio remain silent, although the city of Eibar, low level of pollution, is Gipuzkoa. In the midst of the crisis, moreover, the Mutilva landfill has been closed overnight, in order to avoid further scandals. Meanwhile, popular movements are already on the final straight of the march. The Anti-Incineration Movement has carried out a toxicological analysis of the zero area of Zubieta before the burning of the incinerator and has the results in hand to compare the contamination data year after year; and on 29 February, several agents have called a joint demonstration in Donostia under the motto Ez erre etorkizuna.

“Basque Prestige”

The last to take the floor is Helene Alberdi, representative of the relatives of the missing workers in Eitzaga (Bizkaia). “Thank you to the thousands of people who have come here today, and to all those who during these long days have brought your love and your strength, thank you. The truth is that we are feeling very dear and this is very important. We hope that this pressure will make us get serious at work and that our family members will leave there as soon as possible, thank you very much sincerely.” Before him, Egoitz Txurruka addressed the platform being created in the villages to deal with this issue and said that they will continue to fight.

The older mother and son, at the height of the accident site, observe from the other side of the highway how the excavators are working. These are people who have come from Galicia to Ermua to work for 40 years. “All of this reminds me of what happened with the Prestige tanker – the son tells us, that the mother supports with her head. There too was a tremendous disaster, and what did Rajoy do? First of all, they took away the importance, saying that they were plasma strings, they pulled the boat away from the coast, they felt sad, and in the end, because of bad management, they soiled the entire coastline. I think something similar happens here.” Having said that, they continued to walk at a slight pace.