On 4 November 2019, La Tribune de Planas reported an alert issued by the Asociación de Vecinos Les Planes del Rei – SOS Planas concerning the sanitation situation in the urbanisation.
The association stated that the Planas del Rey wastewater treatment plant had no longer been maintained or operating since the end of the EUCC’s management and that wastewater was being discharged into the ravine below the urbanisation.
It also expressed concern about possible health and environmental consequences and called on the authorities to intervene.
This alert must, however, be placed in context: some of the statements were based on observations and documents, while others — particularly those concerning possible groundwater contamination — referred to risks raised at the time rather than contamination demonstrated by analysis.
An alert that had already begun in 2018
Concern about the wastewater treatment plant did not begin in November 2019.
On 8 October 2018, Gérard Marais, then president of the Asociación de Vecinos Les Planes del Rei, sent a letter to Óscar Serrano.
In it, he stated that since the EUCC stopped carrying out maintenance activities on 31 October 2017, the wastewater treatment facility had no longer been maintained and had ceased operating.
The letter also referred to the possible proximity of an aquifer supplying, among other places, Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant and Miami Platja, and asked Óscar Serrano to alert representatives of the neighbouring municipalities.
This was an alert issued by the association: the letter did not contain water analyses demonstrating contamination of the aquifer.
What does the 2017 BSI certification actually show?
To document the sanitation situation, SOS Planas also produced a BSI certification dating from 2017.
The earlier article in La Tribune presented this document as evidence that the Planas del Rey wastewater treatment plant was “compliant and operational” at the time. That conclusion now needs to be qualified.
The certificate concerns the management system and scope of Comaigua’s services, which included activities connected with sewerage networks and wastewater treatment.
It is therefore useful for documenting the organisation of these services in 2017, but it is not a technical inspection report on the Planes del Rei wastewater treatment plant. On its own, the document does not establish the plant’s precise mechanical condition or demonstrate that it was operating normally at that time.
The issue reaches the Town Council in October 2019
During the summer of 2019, the sanitation issue gradually moved beyond Planas itself.
On 24 August, the Diari de Tarragona reported that Pratdip was among the Baix Camp municipalities that still did not have a wastewater treatment plant.
As we have seen, that report discussed Pratdip at municipal level and did not describe in detail the sewerage system specific to Planas del Rey.
On 4 October 2019, the situation of the Planas treatment plant was explicitly raised before the Town Council.
According to the report published at the time by Avança Pratdip, its councillors asked the mayor whether Mont-roig del Camp and Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant had been informed about the shutdown of the treatment plant and the wastewater discharges into the ravine.
According to the same report, Mayor Joan M. Rovira replied that those municipalities had indeed been informed.
The sanitation situation in Planas therefore became an issue explicitly discussed before the Town Council.
Concerns about the ravine and groundwater
SOS Planas drew particular attention to the route taken by wastewater discharged from the urbanisation and to its possible interaction with local water resources.
The association relied, among other sources, on hydrological maps and the cartographic viewer of the Agència Catalana de l’Aigua.
These documents help to explain the geography of watercourses, catchment areas and groundwater bodies. However, they do not by themselves establish that a discharge originating in Planes del Rei actually contaminated drinking water in Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant, Miami Platja or Mont-roig.
Such a conclusion would require sampling and analysis capable of establishing the existence, nature and origin of any contamination.
A more complex legal situation than previously thought
The Planas del Rey wastewater treatment plant was built at a time when property owners in the urbanisation directly financed many of its infrastructures and services.
The available legal documentation nevertheless requires a careful distinction between the different infrastructures and their administrative status.
The Falset court judgment of 23 November 1993 required Francisco Lebasque to formalise the free transfer of several assets in the urbanisation to Pratdip Town Council.
The judgment lists, among other things:
- the swimming pools;
- the tennis courts;
- the mini-golf course;
- the well and its pumps;
- the streets;
- the sewerage network;
- the green areas;
- the public lighting.
The wastewater treatment plant is not expressly included in this list.
It would therefore be incorrect to state that the 1993 judgment, by itself, transferred the treatment plant to Pratdip Town Council.
The dissolution of the EUCC did not automatically resolve the issue either
The same caution applies to the dissolution of the EUCC ordered by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia on 21 July 2016.
This ruling legally brought to an end the entity that had been responsible for maintaining many of Planas’s infrastructures for decades.
But it was not, in itself, a decision requiring the Town Council to immediately assume responsibility for all of the urbanisation’s infrastructure and services.
This distinction is essential to understanding the situation that arose after the EUCC ceased its activities at the end of 2017: the entity disappeared, but the issues concerning ownership, formal administrative acceptance and the management of certain infrastructures were not automatically resolved.
Juan Oliver’s testimony
SOS Planas also published a video testimony by Juan Oliver, a former municipal technical architect in Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant and a former property owner in Planas del Rey.
In the video, he expresses concern about the condition of the treatment plant, wastewater discharges and their possible environmental consequences.
His professional experience gives particular relevance to his testimony. Nevertheless, it remains an individual testimony rather than an official expert report or environmental assessment carried out by a competent authority.
A petition sent to the European Parliament
On 2 November 2019, Evelyne Planet and Gérard Marais also sent a petition to the European Parliament.
The document describes a number of problems affecting Planas del Rey: the condition of the infrastructure, maintenance, wildfire and nuclear safety, the situation of the treatment plant and wastewater discharges into the ravine.
The authors ask the European Parliament to intervene so that the situation of the urbanisation can be examined.
This petition is an important document in the history of the property owners’ mobilisation: it shows that the Planes del Rei case was now also being raised at European level.
However, the facts described in the petition must be distinguished from its legal interpretations. Some statements concerning the status of the EUCC or automatic obligations of the Town Council reflect the position defended by the petitioners at the time and do not, in themselves, constitute established judicial conclusions.
What the November 2019 alert establishes
The documents and testimonies gathered during the autumn of 2019 show that sanitation in Planas del Rey had become a significant public concern.
At that time:
- the condition of the wastewater treatment plant had concerned some property owners since at least 2018;
- SOS Planas stated that the facility had neither been maintained nor operated since the end of 2017;
- wastewater discharges into the ravine were publicly denounced;
- the issue was raised before Pratdip Town Council;
- possible risks to groundwater were raised, without the available documents demonstrating any specific contamination;
- two property owners submitted a petition to the European Parliament.
November 2019 therefore marked an important stage in bringing the sanitation problem in Planas del Rey to wider public attention. The shutdown of the treatment plant and the wastewater discharges were publicly denounced, while their precise health and environmental consequences remained to be established.
Documents, maps and testimonies
- BSI certification issued in 2017;
- Gérard Marais’s letter to Óscar Serrano – 8 October 2018, in Spanish;
- Petition sent to the European Parliament – 2 November 2019;
- Hydrogeological map of Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant;
- Cartographic viewer of the Agència Catalana de l’Aigua.
La Tribune de Planas
