The state’s actions against illegal wells that drain the Doñana aquifer are increasing. The Prosecutor’s Office of the Regional Court has initiated some preliminary proceedings – an investigation before filing a lawsuit or complaint – on the environmental responsibility that may arise from the extraction of water without authorization from the 27th aquifer that feeds the Park of Doñana, but also a strong one Agricultural companies in Andalusia. Uncontrolled collections are one of the reasons that have pushed this iconic natural area to its limits. In June 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union condemned Spain for failing to comply with its obligation to protect Doñana, including due to water withdrawals for agriculture.
This conviction did not result in a fine for Spain, but the European Commission – which has accused the government over Doñana’s poor condition – is keeping a file for the same reason. After learning of the plans of the PP and Vox in Andalusia to expand the irrigated area around the park, Brussels announced in March this year that it would again turn to the Court of Justice of the European Union, this time seeking a sanction to apply for these continue to exist. Plans.
While these warnings arrived and the Central Government and the Andalusian Government criticized and reproached each other, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court of Justice decided on May 8 to open a pre-trial procedure in this matter, which the Ministry of State reported this Thursday and ordered Prosecutor Manuel Campoy Miñarro. “The purpose of the procedure is to be able to demand environmental responsibility from public or private companies and professionals who, without official authorization or in quantities greater than those permitted, collect groundwater that affects the Doñana Protected Area,” he explained. The Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court.
This department has already ordered the implementation of some procedures, such as the request for expert reports on “the significant adverse effects that such illegal extractions may have on the ecological, chemical and quantitative status of surface or groundwater masses”. by Donana. . The Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Environmental Chamber and the Seprona of the Guardia Civil are also involved in this investigation.
“The decree is very new because it is very proactive. “It means strengthening the prosecutor’s office of the regional court in a contentious-administrative manner, since for years it has focused heavily on criminal matters and there are now fundamental issues in which it can expand its jurisdiction,” say sources in the case. Campoy has been an environmental prosecutor in Valencia for years and therefore dominates the issue of groundwater extraction.
So far, the prosecution’s actions to save Doñana from water thieves have focused on the criminal sector, and both Huelva and Seville have opened cases against farmers with illegal wells and for converting their farms into irrigators for irrigation without authorization. Since 2007, the strawberry farmers have been criminally convicted 49 times, but since they did not serve more than two years in prison, none of them ended up in prison. The litigious-administrative route was examined, but by the farmers who claimed in court that they wanted to avoid paying the administrative penalties imposed by the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation.
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Now the panorama is expanding. It is the public prosecutor’s office that initiates an administrative procedure so that the strawberry farmers pay fines for the damage caused to the aquifer. The Ministry considers that due to non-compliance with the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is entitled to resort to this route to ensure that strawberry farmers stop the depletion of the aquifer and restore it to its previous levels. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court is committed to ensuring the measures so that the European judgment is complied with. Regardless of whether crimes are committed, it asks the Civil Guard to inform them about which strawberry farmers are irrigating without authorization or beyond their water concessions,” explains Juan José Carmona, head of the WWF for Doñana.
In addition to identifying who is behind the water plunder in Doñana based on convictions or pending fines, the Public Ministry is also requesting expert reports from organizations and experts to get a complete picture and see how the environment in the area has been harmed under the law on environmental responsibility, which represents the regulatory framework within which it operates. In the decree, the Public Prosecutor’s Office clarifies that Seprona officials must check harmful private or public withdrawals to ensure that there are city councils in Huelva or Seville that are withdrawing water from the subsoil in excess of authorized levels.
The launch of the investigation comes after the publication of a historic verdict against farmers involved in the plundering of water in Doñana. Judge Isabel de Luque, head of the 14th Criminal Court of Seville, has sentenced five landowner brothers to three and a half years in prison for illegally extracting 19.4 million cubic meters of water over five years between 2008 and 2013. If the verdict is confirmed, The landowners of the Hato Blanco Viejo farm in Aznalcázar (Seville) must go to prison for a crime against the environment and another for damages, in addition to paying 1.9 million in compensation for the massive theft of water committed. By not exceeding the two-year sentence, no farmer has yet been imprisoned for water theft in the provinces of Huelva and Seville.
In addition, the Andalusian parliament, where the right has a comfortable majority, plans to pass the irrigation law in a few weeks. In the decision opening the proceedings, the public prosecutor’s office of the regional court refers to this regularization of irrigation and the warnings of the European Commission. “The response indicates that such measures could breach existing EU environmental law and that, in addition to the powers of the European Commission, it is for the national authorities of Spain to ensure the adoption of the measures necessary for compliance.” “Will take effect” the EU Court of Justice ruling from 2021.
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