The Socialist Group in the Cabildo of Tenerife, the main opposition party, has accused the government of CC and PP of lying about the tertiary treatment works at the Punta Brava wastewater treatment plant, the one in the Valle de La Orotava, and the link made to the lifting of the no-bathing recommendation at Playa Jardín. After receiving an official document requested regarding this project, the Socialists maintain that the tertiary works “are neither completed nor prevent discharges,” asserting that the island’s vice president, former mayor of Puerto de la Cruz and brother of the current highest authority, Lope Afonso, “lied because this project is not for the beach.”
For the PSOE, “the controversy surrounding the reopening of Playa Jardín has taken a new turn, as it is confirmed that the works linked by the Cabildo to the solution of the discharge problems are still unfinished.” This contrasts with statements made by the vice president on 10 June, when he claimed that the completion of the tertiary treatment at the Wastewater Treatment Plant (EDAR) in the Valle “would allow the opening” of Playa Jardín (in reality, it was never closed to bathing, but was recommended against for nearly a year) “in the coming days” and that the works had “solved the environmental problem” of the bay, which is the main one in the tourist city.
The Socialists assert that “an official document from Balten, the public company responsible for the works, dated 25 August 2025, directly contradicts this narrative, stating that the sole motivation for the project is to generate water for agricultural irrigation, and in no case is the aim of the operation to prevent or minimise the discharges of treated water into the sea,” as they indicate to Canarias Ahora. “Moreover, official documents confirm that this action is being carried out under the framework of the water emergency declaration, and therefore, Balten awarded this emergency project to Aqualia (the concessionaire for both the operation of the treatment plant and the water service contract in the municipality of Puerto de la Cruz) for 2 million euros at the end of June 2024,” even before bathing was advised against at Playa Jardín, which happened in July 2024.
For the Socialists, it is very serious that “the very entity executing the project contradicts the vice president, who states that its only purpose is agricultural irrigation. What remains to be seen is whether, when the tertiary system is operational, it can help address the discharge issues around Playa Jardín.” They also criticise Afonso for announcing the completion of the works last June, “but the report reveals that the infrastructure will remain in testing until at least 1 October, and for now, the tertiary system is still not operational and is in a start-up period with intermittent operation and in a testing phase, which invalidates any claim that the infrastructure was fully operational at the time of the announcement.”
Minimal Increase in Water for Irrigation from 10 June to 25 August
They explain that “official documents substantiate this situation, as the delegated councillor of the Primary Sector informed that once the tertiary treatment at the EDAR is operational, it would allow the elevation of regenerated water for agricultural irrigation to the Cruz Santa reservoir, in the neighbouring municipality of Los Realejos, of at least 6,600 cubic metres per day. However, in the official response dated 25 August, it is stated that, following Lope Afonso’s announcement on 10 August regarding the commissioning of this infrastructure, only 12,053 cubic metres have been raised to that reservoir and allocated for agricultural irrigation, which means not even achieving the forecast for two full days.”
In this regard, they point out that, had what was announced been true, “from 10 June to 25 August 2025, at least 495,000 cubic metres of regenerated water should have been pumped, when less than 12,000 cubic metres have been exceeded during that period.” Therefore, they conclude that the recommendation to bathe at Playa Jardín since mid-June occurred “without any structural solution being executed and without explaining to the public what had happened, what was causing the contamination of the bathing waters, and much less what changed for the parameters obtained by the General Directorate of Public Health to allow the recommendation for use when structural solutions remain unexecuted.”
Among these, the submarine outfall that discharges into the sea, “whose fissure has still not been repaired. The fissure announced by the president, Rosa Dávila, in August 2024 that would be resolved in 48 hours has not even been addressed, nor have the works for replacing the 240 metres of the submarine outfall commenced.”
Neither has the regional treatment plant been expanded, “despite its saturation,” and “not even the Puerto de la Cruz City Council has drafted the project for the Punta Brava sewage system, for which the Cabildo provided a one million euro subsidy in December 2024.”
The PSOE makes it clear that “without these fundamental works, the health and environmental safety of Playa Jardín are not guaranteed,” leaving open the possibility that bathing could again be advised against in the future, as happened for nearly a year. For this reason, they accuse the CC and PP government in the Cabildo of “opting for empty announcements instead of real solutions for the residents of Puerto de la Cruz.”
