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. That is why 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 ensure that the landfill is not done, to ban landfills in the municipality and to condition the transfer of waste generated therein to a Community 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.

In times of illegalization

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 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 GI inauguration

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.

NOTE: This article is a breakthrough from the main report of ARGIA this week