La Diputación Foral de Álava grants environmental authorization to the wind power plant of Azaceta
- The Aixeindar group that drives the project has a minor obstacle to the construction of a park that gathers eight windmills. It must now be approved by the Basque Government. EH Bildu calls for the Álava Mountains to be declared a natural park in order to paralyze the wind plant project and protect the environment.
The Provincial Council of Álava has granted environmental approval to the wind power plant project that Aixe intends to build in Azaceta. The Bernedo, Arraia, Maeztu, Joy-Dulantzi, Iruraiz-Gauna and San Millán environments would be occupied by the eight windmills they want to build and generate 40 MW. To this end, Aixe, formed by the Basque Energy Agency and Iberdrola, plans to spend 37 million euros.
Although the project has been the subject of several resources that have slightly displaced wind mills by their location, the Montes Libres de Álava platform says that "it is not a solution". The platform warns that there is an "important ecological corridor" in this area and that the condition will be "irreparable".
Once authorized by the Provincial Council, it is now the Basque Government that has to receive the approval of Aixe, the government itself, to start building the wind farm.
Parque Natural Montes de Vitoria
On Monday EH Bildu proposed the declaration of the Montes de Vitoria as a natural park. The initiative was presented at the City Hall of Vitoria-Gasteiz by Mikel Otero, Eva López de Arroyabe and Rocío Vitero. "It is increasingly evident that the Basque Government has renounced the declaration of the Montes de Vitoria as a natural park, because it hides economic interests and projects, before the conservation of this area of high natural value," they explained.
The declaration of the Montes de Vitoria as a natural park is a historical claim, since the first proposal was made in 2005. Now the sierra is considered a zone of special protection and although the Basque Government decided to extend this name to 5,000 hectares, EH Bildu considers that "the PNV is using all traps so that a wind plant can enter a protection zone".
According to the members of the Abertzale coalition, the only way to curb the Azaceta project is to declare the environment as a natural park, and it has called on all actors and institutions to work on this path.
Environmental activist Mikel Álvarez has produced an exhaustive critical report on the wind macro-power plants that Repsol and Endesa intend to build in the vicinity of Arano and Hernani of the region. In his opinion, this is "the largest infrastructure of this kind that is... [+]
