The Basque Government's Public Information Commission is asking the Department of the Environment to report on the polluting discharges from the incinerator.
- The Anerreka Environmental Association has asked the Department of the Environment of the Basque Government to report to it on the amount of pollutants that the incinerator at Donostia has so far dumped and has not received any response. A permanent emission measurement system connected to the Basque Government's Air Quality Monitoring Network is a prerequisite for the incinerator to have an Integrated Environmental Authorisation. The Anerreka association has submitted a complaint to the Basque Government’s Basque Government’s Access to Public Information Commission, which has approved Arreka’s complaint and has asked the Environment Department to provide Anerreka with the requested information within ten days. Although the deadline was long ago, no data of any kind have yet been provided. One year after the Zaldibar scandal, information on air pollution from large waste infrastructures is still not available to the public.
Incinerators have a meter installed in the fireplace to permanently measure the parameters of the materials they emit in the air. The Department of the Environment of the Basque Government, by resolution of 11 April 2016, amended the Integrated Environmental Authorisation of the incinerator. This resolution has not been made public in official bulletins. It has been made public by ARGIA (can be read here) to make it accessible to citizens. Paragraph F.2.e reads: "The permanent measurement system will be connected to the CAPV Air Quality Control and Earth Monitoring Network." The Resolution details in paragraph 4 the requirements necessary for the implementation of the Integrated Environmental Authorisation, one of which is to "monitor continuously". These are the data from the continuous measurement of the incinerator, which should have been recorded in the Basque Government's air monitoring network.
Since 9 September 2020 no reply
The Anerreka Environmental Association asked the Environment Department of the Basque Government for the data on 9 September last year, in particular the average daily values obtained in 2019 and the average half hour obtained in 2020 until 8 September.
However, the Anerreka Environmental Association received no response to this request from the Department of the Environment, and therefore submitted a written complaint to the Basque Commission on Access to Public Information (IPSEB) on 26 October 2020.
The Public Information Commission confirms Anerreka's request
The Basque Commission for Access to Public Information (CIPCA) has made this resolution known on its website at the end of January 2021, although it is 22 December 2020: according to this resolution, on 12 November the IPSEB transmitted by email the complaint of the association Anerreka to the Department of Environment, requesting the submission of the report within ten days, in response to the request.
The resolution, published by the IPSEB, acknowledges that during the study of this case the Department of the Environment was requested to submit the "documents that it considered relevant to the resolution of the matter" but that it has not received any reply from the Department of the Environment and that it would be "desirable" to know the Department of the Environment's criterion not to provide the information requested by Anerreka. Considers it "regrettable" that the IPSEB has not cooperated and has decided to "assess" the complaint made by the Anerreka Environmental Association, considering that the request for access to the information it submitted in the Department of the Environment has allegedly been denied. And it calls on the Environment Department to "provide the claimant with the information in the application within a maximum of 10 days."
Although the resolution is of 22 December, one month later the public still has no information about the emissions of the incinerator from the Environment Department.
