Three decades ago, the zuberotars heard, “through the press”, that the gas pipeline currently passing through several European countries would pass through Zuberoa. The adversaries founded the Gaspars Society and were the beginnings of a long struggle. The Terega company has now decided to reform a two-kilometre section of the piping network between Larraine and Mitikile, as the movements of the Ühaitza River, especially floods, place the pipes in the field, according to the public survey report. The works have recently begun.

Lanjer confirmed

The well-known speleologist Rubén Gómez, member of the Gaspars association, is currently mayor of Liginaga. For him, it is clear that in the arguments used at the time, the company Terega has confirmed “at least one” for the purposes of execution of works: If there was “risk of flooding for the appearance of gas pipeline pipes or of being driven by water”.

The problems in the gas pipeline due to the floods in the city of Lourdes were also a cause for alarm, but the elected zuberotarras informed the company Terega of the gas lines between Iruri and Ozaze: The interurban syndicate in charge of Ühaitza warned that the underground canal was covered only by a metre and a half, and the Mayor of Iruri also spoke of the instability of the area of Ühaitz.

The other workers were also mentioned against the gas pipeline. Rubén Gómez: “Seismic risk, technical volts, earth blasts…”. However, the Prefect recognized the public utility of the project, just as there has once again been a public benefit in the execution of the works. In the 1990s, Mattin Etxekopar, President of Gaspars, recalled in statements to broadcaster Xiberoko Botza that the public utility statement was later contradicted, in reference to Larraine: “The prefecture gave the name of public utility, saying that the gas pipeline was not a lantern in a populated seismic area, but about ten years later a public utility decision was again adopted banning the construction of the pipeline. For me, that’s the biggest scandal.”

To renew the gas pipeline in those two kilometres, of the three possibilities that were raised in the public survey, the majority decided that it shocked the people of Ozaz. On the edge of Ühaitz, passing through the fields, but on the other side of the river. In the works, which will cost EUR 8 million in Abanzu, the conduit will pass below Ühaitz, on the side of Iruri to Ozaz, and then circulate the diversion through the fields.

Compensation to farmers

On this occasion, Terega has adopted the same strategy that was applied in the 1990s: to offer money to those affected and to disseminate little information. “My people have not been directly affected, but the elect have not been warned. Things are made for people to realize, and with that strategy it is harder to start a fight,” according to Gómez. The Mayor of Ozaz, Maite Etxeberria, had negotiated at least the compensation of a Hungarian farmer for the works.

Although the town house has finally signed an agreement on the works, in September 2018 it made observations about the possible damages that the work could cause in the town: noise damage by the passage of vehicles, deterioration of the road between Aloze and Ozaze, citizen security problems in the surroundings of the plaza… Already before, Etxeberria says that they prefer the route of Iruri, “here there are more labradores touched, and one of them. For us that was a problem you haven’t heard of.”

A Hungarian labrador, Maryse Espil, speaks desperately of the lack of equipment in the works: “You can’t do anything yourself; you can win a battle if there’s a team. 30 years ago, the whole project was moving from Larraine to Mitikile, and many farmers were Hungarians. Now it’s a bit, it’s two kilometers.” In recent weeks, mechanical shovels have already begun to work, and Espil has been given the "belly pain". It refers with humour, first of all, to compensation: “Okay, I told you, give a penny of every meter of gas that goes through there.” But it continued more seriously. “It is our environment that passes, why do we need the damage and they benefit them? I haven’t negotiated it, I won’t sign it, that’s for sure.”

The construction site is located in a Natura 2000 environmental protection area. This is an area in which farmers cannot dump land and are not entitled to cut sawmills. “They are with their blades and they deny everything,” Espil says. A paraphrase has also been rotated to ensure that whatever is necessary after the work is already planted. In addition, the place where the works will be carried out will also affect the endangered Pyrenean desman or the residence of the endangered Pyrenean desman. “We have to listen and if they are right,” the farmer added.

Although in 2018 it was named in several councils of the villa, in general it has begun to perform this great work without much media noise. Andde Üthürriage, farmer of Ozaeta, gave his opinion clearly on the radio Botza de Zuberoa: "They probably don't have any worries. It’s not worth fighting them, when they’ve decided where the step is going.”