The Government of Spain has taken the first step for the environmental recovery of the land occupied by the former SIMSA factory in Pontejos, Marina de Cudeyo, with the tender of the contract for the drafting of the project of dismantling the facilities and the restoration of the public sea-land domain.
This has been announced on Wednesday by the Government delegate in Cantabria, Eugenia Gómez de Diego, during a visit to the area with the mayor of the municipality, Pedro Pérez Ferradas, and the head of the Coastal Demarcation in Cantabria, José Antonio Osorio, where he has detailed that the action will take place in two phases and will affect about 20 hectares, of which approximately 85,000 square meters are occupied by industrial constructions in a ruinous state.
Before the media, Gómez de Diego stressed that "the Government of Spain takes a firm and tangible step for the environmental recovery of a degraded space for decades, which will once again be integrated into the natural environment of the municipality and the Cantabrian coast".
The delegate also highlighted the involvement of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, led by Sara Aagesen, "whose receptivity has been total from the first moment, attending to the request for subsidiary execution transferred by this Delegation at the request of the City Council."
As he recalled, this demolition was "one of the priorities" that the mayor proposed to the delegate in one of the first meetings they had after their arrival in the Government Delegation. "Today that commitment becomes concrete administrative action," I added.
The mayor, for his part, has shown his satisfaction for this first step in the recovery of the area. In this regard, he wanted to thank both the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the delegate herself for their involvement from the first moment. "It is an area with terrible conditions, which had been abandoned for too long and was a problem, as well as a bad image for one of the main accesses to our municipality," he stressed.
Regarding the future of the space, the mayor has opted for a recovery based on environmental respect. "I am quite humble in my claim: I am satisfied that it is a natural space where you can walk, play sports, enjoy the environment. I am not looking for great infrastructure, but for a dignified and natural place," he said.
Two phases
The first phase, already begun with the tender of the contract, includes the drafting of the project for the demolition of existing structures and the removal of waste, as well as the characterization of soils and waters to determine the extent of possible pollution derived from historical manufacturing activities. This includes technical work such as topography, geotechnics, and a sampling plan that allows the level of soil contamination to be analyzed.
This action, technically promoted by the Demarcation of Costas in Cantabria, has a base tender budget of 44,038.56 euros and an execution time of six months.
"This is an action expected by the neighbors, and that today begins to materialize with the tender of the services for the drafting of the project of demolition and recovery of the public domain of the sea-land. This is the first contract that will allow us to start an action that, although it will be complex and will be developed in several phases, has already begun to take firm and decisive steps, with political will," he said.
The land, located on the right bank of the Tijero estuary, was under concession since 1909 to the company Minas de Roga. In 2018, the General Directorate of the Coast and the Sea declared the expiration of the concession and ordered the lifting of the facilities, which was appealed by the company Sociedad Ibérica de Moltura SA (SIMSA), without success. The National High Court dismissed the appeal in a judgment of May 2022, confirmed as final after the Supreme Court’s inadmissibility of the cassation appeal in February 2023.
Due to the lack of compliance on the part of the company - which did not submit the demolition project or deposit the bond of 872,835 euros required, the mayor of Marina de Cudeyo requested the Government to execute the subsidiary, a request that was transferred by the delegate to the Ministry for Ecological Transition headed by Sara Aagesen and which has given rise to the tender now announced.
Once the project of the first phase has been drafted and implemented, a second phase will be given that will include the final design of the soil recovery, depending on the degree of contamination detected. In this way, the second phase will consist in the drafting and execution of a comprehensive environmental recovery project, which will completely restore this natural area and return this public domain to its proper legal and ecological status.