Pigs, waste, and a consultation that ERC doesn't want: earthquake in Moià

BarcelonaERC is championing the right to decide, but in Moià, where it governs with an absolute majority, it is putting every possible obstacle in the way of its residents voting on whether they want the slaughterhouse expansion and the installation of a biogas plant. On May 21, the municipal government refused to admit the consultation to promote the 200 residents in the town hall square.

ERC agreed to ask the citizens, but put on the table its own consultation, simply to ask residents if they agree with the regularization of the industrial estate of El Prat, where there are various companies, such as the slaughterhouse, and if they agree with the installation of the slaughterhouse. The Republicans believe that accepting these projects is the only way to regularize the estate and, therefore, save the companies currently installed there, but environmentalists and the opposition disagree and believe there are other avenues, after the Generalitat has accepted the consultation. the vote, considering that it has no justified reason not to do so. The council now had only the legal option left—filing an administrative appeal before Wednesday—but it promised not to go to court, and so it has done so. The POUM amendment is being made to regularize the industrial estate and to avoid having to close the existing companies that employ 500 families in the region."

Jaume Sesé, spokesperson for the Moià Popular Consultation Promotion Committee, which has collected 1,800 signatures from residents of these municipalities. "They want the question to be tailored to their position, but it's obvious that everyone wants the industrial estate to be regularized," he argues, recalling that the coordinator has already amended the question three times, seeking the consensus requested by the Generalitat.

If there is no agreement, the mayor has announced that he will accept the consultation as proposed by the coordinator, but warns that it is not binding and that the final say rests with the government: "I will act responsibly and will not march as the mayor who closed it, even though he has incurred the City Council's debt due to the compensation that will have to be paid to the companies, and whatever that entails." Be that as it may, he has already called an extraordinary plenary session on Wednesday for the initial approval of the project to regularize the industrial estate, which was already approved by a mayoral decree. "So far, he has only put spokes in the wheels, and now he is going straight ahead; I don't know if we'll be there in time to stop him," emphasizes Junts spokesperson Maria Tarter.

But what is the proposal on the table? The slaughterhouse owner wants to expand the facilities on the land south of the industrial estate and will transfer part of it to the City Council for the construction of a biogas plant, which will be financed by the Next Generation Fund. The land will also be used to install missing elements in the industrial estate to regularize it. In return, the City Council will rezone all of this land, which is currently rural land and cannot be part of an industrial estate.

Proposal to the government after the elections

Pilar Clapers, spokesperson for the environmental organization El Fanal, points out that the slaughterhouse has had a final closure order since 1999 and recalls that the current owner bought it in 2022 and that just after the municipal elections, he presented the proposal to the government. "It's curious, to say the least," she denounces. "It all smells burnt," adds CUP spokesperson Lakshmi Roset, who explains that people are mobilizing like never before because "the indignation is strong."

The mayor rejects that everything was planned. "There can always be coincidences; and now we must take advantage of it because in 14 years as mayor, that possibility has not arisen," she emphasizes, while highlighting that both the slaughterhouse and the other companies have a license to continue operating and that they will claim compensation for losing profits if they are closed.

Clapers argues that some residents oppose the project because it "will double the land area of the industrial estate in a protected area" and because of "the unpleasant smells and polluting emissions from the biogas plant." He explains that "only 11% of the waste is actually from Moià" and that "only 0.08% of the 3,000 pigs slaughtered daily are from the region." He argues that the northern part of the estate could be regularized, but the mayor says it is prone to flooding and that the Generalitat (Catalan government) has already rejected it. "We don't believe that regularizing a 10.2-hectare estate would require modifying 13.3 hectares. They haven't shown any technical report concluding that this is the only option," Clapers replies.