WRITTEN QUESTION E-1563/01

by Patricia McKenna (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(28 May 2001)

Subject: Construction of a sports centre at the Cecebre reservoir, municipality of Avegondo, Spain

The Deportivo de La Coruña football club wishes to build a sports centre extending over more than 100 000 m2 beside the Cecebre reservoir, an area belonging to the Natura 2000 network. In addition to the immense environmental importance of the site (it is a bird habitat/resting area; the species to be found there include migrant birds, ducks and mud dwellers, herons, lesser egrets, the kingfisher, otters, newts, the osprey, falcons, the kestrel, the goshawk, the Spanish frog, the smooth snake, the stag beetle, the fox, and the shrew; and the site is a bird nesting area, an international bird migration observation and monitoring area, an area of special botanical interest, an Atlantic woodland area, and a natural landscape area(1)), its state of conservation also determines the cleanliness of the water supply for human uses for the city of La Coruña

and its outskirts (400 000 people). In the area there are several other possible sites for the projected facilities, all of which would have less impact. Despite the opposition of La Coruña City Council and Galician and Spanish national environmental and nature conservation NGOs, the on-site preparations have begun, producing nothing short of an environmental disaster in an area of approximately six hectares within a zone in the immediate vicinity of the reservoir water (up to the water's edge) by destroying vegetation, making the ground uneven, and altering the direction of the springs and watercourses that flow into the wetland.

No environmental impact assessment has been conducted on the project, and the work carried out to date has gone ahead without planning permission even though the site is under threat from various forms of environmental aggression, namely:

(a) physical aggression (permanent structures and possible urban development of the area);

(b) aggression inflicted on the aquatic environment in both senses of the word, i.e. the wetland and the city water supply storage area, stemming from the use of weedkillers and other chemicals on the 10 football pitches and from the sewage that will be generated by the thousands of likely visitors; and

(c) the massive influx of people who will not be coming to the area with the intention of observing the natural environment.

Does the Commission think it right that, to accommodate a football club's sports centre, part of an area belonging to the Natura 2000 network should be destroyed and the area as a whole placed in severe jeopardy?

Could it investigate whether the legislation on environmental impact assessment has been observed?

(1) Source: Autonomous Government of Galicia, Ministry of the Environment (http://www.xunta.es/conselle/cma/CMA05e/CMA05eb/p05eb06.htm).

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(16 July 2001)

The Commission was not aware of the project the Honourable Member is referring to.

The Commission cannot comment at this stage on the possible destruction of the site designated by the authorities for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network. According to the information at the Commission's disposal, the designated site only contains the reservoir referred to in the question.

The Commission will therefore, in the next 10 days, send the Spanish authorities a request for information on the reported situation so that it can check that Community legislation is being properly applied in this particular case.