A wastewater treatment plant./ Poto: www.aees.org.es
The Diplomat. 26/07/2018
European Union Court of Justice yesterday imposed on Spain a millionaire fine for bad wastewater treatment in nine Spanish localities, seven of them in Andalusia. Spain will have to pay 12 million euros immediately and an additional fine of 11 million for each semester of delay.
These nine Spanish cities do not have collectors or treatment of urban wastewater. In Andalusia, the black spots to which it refers are Isla Cristina, Matalascañas, Barbate, Tarifa, Coín, Alhaurín el Grande and Nerja. The other affected localities are Gijón (Asturias) and Güímar (Canary Islands).
The Court of Justice of the European Union imposed to Spain a million euros fine for the delay to adapt to the European regulations the treatment systems of urban wastewater in different municipalities of the country. The court declared for the first time the breach of Spain in a 2011 ruling, after the European Commission filed an appeal against this country, having verified that 43 Spanish municipalities with more than 15,000 inhabitants did not have urban wastewater treatment systems.
The Court concluded that Spain had not complied with the Directive on wastewater treatment because it did not carry out neither the collection nor the treatment of the urban wastewater, respectively, in 6 and 37 urban agglomerations, respectively, with more than 15,000 population. In 2017, the Commission filed a new appeal for non-compliance against Spain, after verifying that the country still did not comply with the ruling in respect of 17 of the affected urban agglomerations.
