The GOB requests the removal
of the Energy Plan and criticises the installation of desalination
plants (7/11/2000)
Last
weekend, the Annual Interisland Meeting of the GOB took place
in Menorca. An important part of the meeting was dedicated to
analysing and evaluating the Sectorial Directive Plan for Energy
for the Balearics, elaborated by the Balearic Government and that
is at present open for public information. The GOB's conclusion
is that the Energy Plan permits continuing the same model of urban
growth as the past few years, as it increases the electric power
by 75% over the next 15 years. The ecological organisation considers
that the Energy Plan does not respond to any sustainable environmental
model and therefore it agreed, in the Interisland meeting, to
ask the Balearic Government, in fact the Department for Innovation
and Energy, to withdraw the Energy Plan, presented last July 19,
and to elaborate a new Plan that starts from absolutely different
bases.
In the interisland meeting the problem of the water and solution pointed at from the adminsitration were considered. In this sense, the GOB strongly cricitised the policies started by the central Minister of Environment, Jaume Matas, which promote the indiscriminate installation of desalination plants from sea water in the great part of the municipalities on the coast of the Balearics. The organisation considers that the desalination of sea water implies an extremely high consumption of electric energy that obliges the construction of new power centres and therefore to increase the emission of contaminating gases. Therefore, the GOB insists on the need to give priority to saving policies, improving the network of drinking water, the sewage and reuse of treated water, installing individual metres, rationalising the agricultural use and restricting the tourist growth.