Fifty neighbors blocked the B-510 highway this Thursday, leading to the municipality of Dosrius (Maresme). They do so to show their rejection of the asphalt factory project planned for the Rocà quarry, where currently only extractive activity is carried out.
Esther Balmaña, spokesperson for the residents, warns that the plant would have “very important environmental and health effects”, since the factory would be next to the homes in the Can Massuet core. The neighbors also allege that the activity would also end up affecting the aquifers of the Argentona stream. In this sense, they trust that the ACA will end up rejecting the project, as the full City Council has also done. The promoting company has until April 24 to request the environmental license that would allow it to move forward with the project.
On this date it will be a year since the Territorial Urbanism Commission of the Generalitat gave its approval to the preliminary project presented by the company in 2021. During this time, several organizations of the Catalan administration have drawn up reports favorable to the activity but who has not yet has positioned itself is the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), the residents’ last hope to cancel the project.
In parallel, the neighbors presented an appeal to Urban Planning in December against the Specific Action Plan (PAE) promoted by the City Council to determine whether the activity is viable or not. Given that Dosrius does not have a Municipal Urban Planning Plan (POUM) that establishes the permitted uses outside the urban area, this is the legal tool that may or may not give the green light to a project like this.
The response should arrive in the next fifteen days or the appeal would decline due to administrative silence, neighbors warn. For this reason, the tone of the mobilizations has increased, given the exhaustion of all the deadlines that can decide the future of the asphalt factory. In the coming weeks, the mobilization could move to Barcelona to make the anger of those affected more visible.
