Mus: “We changed the law so that no hydraulic work depends on a landscape report”
The Minister for the Environment, Infrastructure and Territory, Vicente Martínez Mus, speaks to La Vanguardia in his office after the inauguration of Cevisama. He talks about reconstruction, the management of the damage to his Ministry, the legislative changes to face the new reality and the new risks and he criticises the lack of information received by the Government, the main argument in defence of Carlos Mazón's Ministry.
On Monday, 'La Vanguardia' published the controversy over the Huerta Law and how it affected the works on the Poyo ravine. The opposition points out that there is no environmental assessment report against these projects, but that they are favourable or conditional on landscape integration. Is there really any report that puts it in black and white that the works could not be carried out because of the Huerta Law?
I am not the one saying this. This is what the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation told the Valencia City Council's study commission on the flood. The CHJ conveys that the problem was in the Huerta Law. For this reason, one of the reasons for the change in this regulation has been precisely to ensure that there will never again be an obstacle to these works being undertaken. We have modified one of the articles to ensure that a hydraulic infrastructure does not have to adhere to any landscape report, which was the obstacle that existed. I remember that the former minister Teresa Ribera also said, at the time, that it was a regulation that had prevented this type of work from being carried out.
How do you assess the fact that the Government has not yet budgeted the money to carry out these works in the Poyo ravine and also in other ravines affected by the flood?
Obviously, very badly, very negatively. I was recently in the ravine and the feeling I got was that the flood had not even served to change the pace and speed up the works. We continue to talk about deadlines, about plans and not about works... we should already be on that. The works still do not have a budget. We need not only the one in the Saleta ravine; the Magro River does not even have prior studies of actions, and we have to start doing them now. We are coming off a strong blow that has to force us to get our act together quickly. I am very disappointed, but not surprised either.
Minister Vicente Martínez Mus
Miguel LorenzoRegarding the Huerta Law, what are the most important changes that will be introduced in the law?
The most important change is not to consider the vegetable garden as a garden or a landscape. It is an economic activity. What cannot continue to happen is that farmers, who are the ones who can really guarantee the future of the vegetable garden, see this regulation as an obstacle. The idea is to remove the urban planning rigor of the regulation, because we already have other ways of regulating the territory, and to give farmers the tools to renew their farms, modify their plantations... so that the vegetable garden can be profitable, so that people can live off it and thus guarantee its future.
Furthermore, after the DANA, in those municipalities that are in urgent need of residential land because neighborhoods have to be relocated, the reform will allow those municipalities that so decide to build on the most degraded land.
You have met with farmers, who have asked for no restrictions on agricultural activities or for more funding - 1.8 million euros - for the new law. Will you take these demands into account? How will they be reflected in the legislation?
What is clear is that the law will make it much easier to have a budget, because until now the money was basically allocated to the bureaucratic system of the Consell de l'Horta. Now the money can go directly where it should go.
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At the end of the year, they also approved a decree to make urban development projects more flexible. What will this mean? Will there be more facilities for urban development?
The point here was to make a stop after the disaster. That is what we did: stop and not admit any new urban reconversion procedure in those places that had been flooded, that were at risk. It was the most urgent thing; that everyone knew that we were not going to process any urban planning instrument that would generate new land, if that land had been affected by the flood. In addition, what we do want was that those general plans that need to relocate their land to build new housing and that already had unused plots of land, can carry it out quickly. But with one condition, a commitment that within 10 years, that land used to build housing will be created again.
Regulatory changes will allow new housing to be built on unused plots"
The councillor during the interview with 'La Vanguardia'
Miguel LorenzoMany houses, we are talking about half a thousand, will have to be demolished completely or partially. In many local councils, the debate is being opened on what to do with these houses. Will they be demolished and then rebuilt?
The main objective of the meeting with the CHJ last week was precisely to resolve this doubt. We need to know what the Confederation is going to do, how it is going to reconfigure the channels, whether or not they are going to do these works, because depending on what we know, we will be able to answer that question. If we do not know what the CHJ is going to do, it is impossible. That is why we are obsessed with them telling us how they plan to do the pending works. We cannot go blindly in this regard. I find this uncertainty very serious.
When in doubt, stay put. If we are not sure that there will be works to protect the houses or that the riverbed will be reconditioned, we will not facilitate reconstruction because that would also be something unconscious on our part.
Councillor Martínez Mus, during a moment of the interview
Miguel LorenzoRegarding the new Dana cartography that was recently presented, we understand that it should serve to reorganize the territory. Are changes planned in the Patricova?
We already said, before the flooding plan, that we were working on the reformulation of Patricova (the flood plan of the Valencian Community). Now we have to learn from what has happened in the Magro basin or in the Barranco del Poyo. In this sense, Patricova affects the entire autonomous community and the data is out of date, especially in the affected area. We have to take into account the phenomenon of climate change and that Patricova was approved many years ago, with a small adaptation in 2016. The purpose of the Dana cartography is to know what has been flooded, to what extent and where the land should not be reprogrammed, unless the Confederation carries out its protection works.
Martínez Mus answers the interview questions
Miguel LorenzoThey have also made a legislative change that will allow hotels to be built 200 metres from the sea. In this context of climate change, do you consider this appropriate?
The general rule does not have to be the norm to apply. Just because it can be done in some cases does not mean that it has to be done, far from it. What is at stake here is giving the possibility when the alternative is very palpable. This change is to build residential, hotel uses, more with a camping profile than a hotel, as it is currently drafted, and it is an urban planning regulation that allows it, but does not require it to be done. I am saying that this possibility exists only when there is no other regulation that prohibits it.
So, has a legislative change been made to the exception rather than the rule?
Until now, it was never possible to build a highway even if there was a motorway in that conservation strip, as is the paradigmatic example of the V-21 entrance to Valencia. With the change, if necessary and if no other regulations are breached, such an installation could be authorised. However, the regulation for the entire coastline is the regulation for protection and use, but we do not have that yet, it is being processed.
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L'Albufera has been the most emblematic natural space hit by the flood. Investments are being announced by Valencia City Council. What will the Council do to try to return some normality to the lake?
The first objective was to clean up and eliminate the waste, which was a lot and of varying severity. We have several administrations that have offered to collaborate. The relationship with Valencia City Council is excellent, but we have not yet seen the great commitment that the Ministry said it would make. I do have to say that, after all the analyses we have been doing, there does not seem to be any irreversible damage to biodiversity. The truth is that the damage could have been much greater, but in the end the waste that arrived in the first few days was basically organic. In addition, in record time we were able to prevent urban waste from reaching L'Albufera.
Regarding the management of the flood plain, there has been controversy over the fact that no roads were closed. Whose responsibility is it to close a road?
It is easy to understand. We do not have traffic police. That is the answer to the question. We can say which roads are affected by what, but traffic regulation is not our responsibility because we do not have the means to do so.
But who is supposed to give the order?
The Ministry of the Interior regulates traffic and they are the ones who have the power to put four officers there to block a road.
The responsibility of cutting off roads on the day of the Dana was the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior.
We wanted to ask you about October 29th. At six in the evening, you were at an awards ceremony with the first vice-president of the Consell. With the red alert in place and some roads already flooded, do you think that the situation was up to par and that the right action was taken?
I was indeed at the CEV event on the 29th. I am not part of Cecopi, but the general director of Infrastructure is. That day she had buried her father and the regional secretary was replacing her. I was in constant communication with him. I must say that one always resists cancelling one's agenda. There was a moment when they called me from FGV and said: "We have problems on line 1." I ended up at CEV and ran to the Valencia Sur headquarters, which is 100 metres from the Poyo ravine. Before arriving, they warned me that it was starting to rain even though it wasn't raining. The fact is that, when we got to the entrance, the driver warned me what was happening and gave us just enough time to go around the roundabout and get away as fast as possible. The regional secretary, the two general directors who were with him, and many other workers who spent the night there stayed in Valencia Sur. In fact, the regional secretary had gone with his private car and lost it.
I tried to get to the FGV headquarters but at the entrance we had to turn around and flee as fast as possible."
This whole story, this whole account, serves to point out that, at that time, I was not aware that the situation was what it was with the information I had.
Do you have an approximate date for when the metro could be resumed in Paiporta, Picanya or Torrent?
We have set ourselves the goal of summer. And the beginning of summer is June 21. If we can bring it forward, then we will bring it forward. I think we are going at a good pace, but the prudent date I can give today is that one. There is still a lot of work to do, a lot of track to replace, stations to completely redo, like the one in Paiporta.
There was already talk before the Dana about the need for metropolitan management of the territory, when Valencia was mentioned. Does the Ministry have any plans in this regard?
That is probably one of the most important lessons we have learned: the ability to improve metropolitan transport. I confess that I was not aware of the volume of journeys generated by the metropolitan area until we were forced to replace them. We are talking about 1.7 million journeys and that deserves a global approach. I think we have been quick and have relatively quickly recovered the 18 affected regional roads. We have also quickly recovered the tram and a large part of the metro. But we must learn from this in order to try to improve the entire metropolitan area. Obviously, these are approaches that cannot be done overnight. Infrastructures have a process and planning that is done in the long term, but we cannot stop starting to do so.
The Minister of Environment, Infrastructure and Territory, Vicente Martínez Mus.
Miguel LorenzoYou are calling for the expansion of Alicante and Valencia airports. Are these projects making progress?
I see little desire, the truth is, little intention on the part of the central Executive. We have managed to get them to listen to us, but no steps are being taken. Something similar is happening to what we have talked about with the flood. We, in this Ministry, have calculated an extra expense due to the flood of 2.3 billion euros and they are not going to help us in any way. Not a cent has arrived. I am sure that the other Spaniards would have liked a contribution from the Government to help the affected area. And that hurts me a lot. If we have not had that which is so urgent and so obvious, that we needed the maximum support, speaking of long-term infrastructures such as airports, then I am even more pessimistic.
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