Is it harmful to the environment? It would be more damaging to build 3,000 homes there.” Deputy Mayor of Donostia-San Sebastian, Nekane Arzallus (PNV), responded to EH Councilors Bildu Markel Ormazabal and Elkarrekin Podemos Marta Huarte and Haizea Garay on 18 January. At the end of 2020, since El Diario Vasco published that the City Hall wants to build a park of nine hectares of surfing in the Martutene district, this is the first time the debate has reached a political level. Despite the small number of people who took seriously, the Commission on Services for the People of the City of Donostia-San Sebastián has seen that this government has a firm will to carry out the project. The inquiries and questions submitted by the opposition have made it possible to learn more about the project.

“It will help to improve the surfing activity itself. The surfers will be able to train there and we are sure that thanks to this, many young people will start practicing this sport.” This was defended by Vice-President Arzallus, in the absence of Goia. In their words, the City Hall of Donostia-San Sebastian, the Basque Government and the Basque Team Foundation have decided to promote surfing as a sport, and all the agents that are part of the cluster Surf City Donostia want to promote this sport in the city – not to say specifically, that infrastructure that supports the different agents that are in that cluster. When he was reproached that this is a project designed to attract tourism, he said that this is not the case, especially for the Donostiarras. In the city there are many companies working around this sport and, in short, they want to boost surfing: “You will be able to surf every day of the year thanks to this project.”

In the committee, some technical experts on the project, such as land ownership, have also been made known. Although the sum of the following amounts does not reach 100%, the following figures: 1.08% of the area corresponds to the City Hall of Donostia-San Sebastián, 67.40% to the private owner and 27.55% to the Basque Government, a public company attached to the Basque Government Visesa. The park would be run by a private company and is expected to be held within two years. The opposition wants to know if the project is in hand and, in addition to the pool, they have asked him if he is going to do some small trade, restaurant or something, or if they have calculated the number of jobs he would create. It has gone beyond the first question and pointed out that it is not possible to know exactly what the jobs are until the projects are defined. In the past, there is a time when Ernesto Gasco announced that building an artificial wave in Antondegi would create 500 jobs. However, there is some project that has existed for a few years, since the news published by the journal of the Vocento Group involved an exact photomontage, and the works carried out in the last two years in the neighborhood of Txomiñenea seen behind have not been carried out.

Ecological damage as the axis of criticism

The main arguments against the project have so far been focused on the environment. A few days after the news was released, the first agent to speak out against the project was the ornithological association Itsas Enara/SEO-Birdlife, which denounced that the surf park would damage the habitat of many birds in danger of extinction. They recalled that there are 117 species of birds on Mount Antondegi, of which 29 are included in the Catalogue of Endangered Species of the Basque Government. Subsequently, the ecologist group Eguzki has condemned the project, as if it were agents taking positions on the chess table. The main causes are natural waves, waste of energy, expenditure, destruction of the environment...

Also EH Bildu and Elkarrekin Podemos de Donostia-San Sebastián have taken the environment as the central axis of criticism: that they want to artificialize the mountain, that they will have to make roads to reach it, that there will be a great waste of water and energy and that the city has claimed the climate emergency. With regard to the latter point, the Deputy Mayor replied that there is no reason for concern about the environment, since both the City Council of Donostia-San Sebastián and the Environmental Department of the Basque Government, chaired by Iñaki Arriola, would prepare the reports and take the necessary measures to prevent damage to fauna and flora. In addition, three times during the municipal session the argument that it would be more damaging to build 3,000 homes there has been repeated.

The current government defends this project because the 2010 General Plan for Territorial Planning stated that it was suitable for development. However, in the course of more than a decade since the ordination of the territory, there are many things that have changed, among them, that the climate is in full emergency in the world, and in this sense, this Municipal Government made public on March 17, 2020 the declaration of climate emergency, with multiple proposals for action, including the “renunciation of the execution of soils classified as urbanizable in the General Plan 2010” and the elaboration of a new plan.

In addition to the nine hectares of the surf park in the upper part of the mountain, they have pointed out that the Industrial Polygon 27, located at the foot of Antondegi, will be extended by ten hectares, ensuring that the other 74 hectares of Mount Antondegi will be classified as non-urbanizable and will refuse to build 3,000 homes there. Will this political movement be enough for Mayor Goia, faced with the growing seriousness of the climate emergency, to sell an infrastructure like ten Olympic pools as a climate action?

Spinning around with the artificial wave

Although he has caught a lot of people in the surprise, for several years the city authorities have publicly mentioned their plans to build an artificial slug.

The artificial wave project presented by Odón Elorza in 2007, when he was mayor of Donostia-San Sebastián, has remained for history. On the beach of the Zurriola, at the bottom of the sea, they expressed their intention to carry out a giant mechanical wave of 230 meters in length, 40 meters in width and height of the Kursaal building. Ander Usabiaga has recovered in social networks the article written then by Mitxel Ezquiaga in El Diario Vasco in which he presents the invention as “the image of an innovative Gipuzkoa”. This was not going to be a tourist attraction project, but a “boost for renewable energies”, although the idea was presented by the tourism councilor. To inaugurate the project of the wave, the organization of an international conference on renewable energies was announced, with names such as Al Gore or singer Bono, who would come to the city from the beginning. It was never done, and the project ended up in the landfill of history.

A decade later, in 2017, Deputy Mayor of San Sebastian, Ernesto Gasco, current High Commissioner for the Fight against Child Poverty of the Government of Spain, expressed his intention to build an artificial wave, this time on the outskirts of the city: Altza or Zubieta. In 2018 he mentioned the idea again in an international surf conference, but on this occasion he said that if the new Spanish military barracks were not built in Antondegi, in Martutene, he would propose to do so there. He said that in summer “it would help prevent agglomerations on the beaches” and that it would create 500 jobs, as we mentioned earlier.

What do surfers say?

In statements to the commission of the City Council of Donostia, Nekane Arzallus explained that the cluster Donostia City Surf, which brings together the main surf agents of the city, wants to boost surfing in the city. It is possible to suspect that some of the agents present look favourably on the project, such as the WaveGarden company that carries out these projects; you do not have to be a sorcerer to know that it is the one that has the most tickets to carry out a project of a few million euros. However, the cluster has all kinds of associations, from surf schools to surfers like Groseko Indarra, clothing stores, Euskal Herriko Surf Federazioa, hotels, board repair shops, Federación Guipuzcoana de Piragüismo, Club Deportivo Fortuna, Mondragon Unibertsitatea and a myriad of clothing brands. The question is whether they are all in favour of building such an infrastructure in this natural space of Martutene.

We will have to see how the agents who have not yet taken a position, the associations of neighbours in Martutene and surroundings or the surfers themselves in Donostia, to name but a few, will be located. Meanwhile, the Surf Rider’s Foundation, which has 50,000 international partners, has publicly voiced opposition to these infrastructures, which they call Fake Wave – the Fake Wave – just a few months ago, as the environmental impact is far greater than its potential contribution to surfing.

The opponents of this new infrastructure are awaiting the experience of San Juan de Luz, which has recently been left with its legs in the hands of the City Hall, QuickSilver and Wavegarden. For several months, some 70,000 signatures against this initiative were collected by surfers of all kinds who, on their behalf, would not accept such unnatural projects. Social struggles, however, have local characteristics and it is yet to be seen whether the popular movements that will be able in Gipuzkoa and the political opposition stop the neoliberal orientation of the City Hall of the PNV-PSE. In view of the background of recent years, with the waste of millions of euros on the metro that has revolutionized the city centre, the underground station of the TAV in the city, the opening of dozens of hotels, the payment of a sculpture of 4 million euros on the island, the commissioning of an incinerator in the suburbs, the duplication of the Garbera shopping centre, preserving the architectural heritage as trash, etc. How will it end? That is to be seen.