19 to declare over environmental disgrace

A GUADALAJARA judge has called 19 people to give declarations regarding irregularities detected at a dangerous refuse treatment plant in Chiloeches which caught fire in August.

The judge has stated following investigations that workers at the plant appear to have been mixing dangerous and non-dangerous materials before covering them with building rubble and transporting and dumping them at a construction material dump.

The owner of the plant, managers of the company which rented the premises and plant workers along with former and current members of the local and regional authorities are amongst those who will have to give their version of events in court.

Judge Fernando de la Fuente described the group, which was found first by private detectives and subsequently by the Guardia Civil’s Seprona nature protection branch to have blatantly broken environmental regulations, as an organised criminal group. The plant, the judge stressed, was allowed to continue to operate with the local council and Junta de Castilla-La Mancha regional government turning a blind eye even though its environmental permissions were not in place.

Investigations revealed that between March 2015 and March 2016, while Grupo Layna was renting the facility, 27,220 tonnes of dangerous materials were received at the plant which the workers are suspected to have mixed with rubble and dumped.