The impossibility of purifying the water in the Valencian towns most affected by DANA, which destroyed a hundred treatment plants, and the “enormous” amount of decomposing organic waste that has been accumulating for a week in homes, establishments and streets are in these moments the two great concerns of the Government in environmental matters. For purification, and as an immediate measure, it currently plans to use portable purifiers of the kind it uses to assist other countries in international cooperation, while for waste collection a “double collection” has been enabled, directed by Tragsa, at homes. and in establishments such as fishmongers, butchers or fruit shops where waste accumulates.
The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, has referred to these two special points of concern within his powers during an appearance before Congress, which has canceled its ordinary agenda to focus only on DANA and after spending two days in Valencia examining the state of the situation.
“The Generalitat counts more than 100 wastewater treatment facilities of all sizes affected. There are treatment stations literally buried by one, two or three meters of mud, absolutely unusable,” said Morán, along with the fact that the collectors in The streets are still flooded and not even an assessment of the damage can be made, he has pointed out the need to use “alternative systems” to avoid “health problems.”
“As there are no purification and sanitation systems and we do not have collectors, discharges are occurring without any type of treatment and this leads us to have to enable specific solutions to prevent it from becoming a health problem in the short term,” he said.
In relation to waste collection and based on what the operators in Valencia have told him, he added that “immediately, the difficulties are because there are many areas where all the decomposing perishable products that generate a serious health problem.”
(more information will be available soon)