Two years after the Generalitat announced a subsidy of 4.5 million euros to remove the 13 tons of asbestos in the Badia del Vallès housing stock, the residents denounce that the work has not yet begun and that they have the feeling that no administration knows how to address the problem. “Everything is paralyzed, the subsidy expires in 2026 and it seems that no one knows what to do,” explains Juan José López, member of the Asbestos Commission. Making it clear that “they are not going against anyone,” the neighbors are contemplating resuming the mobilizations to force the administrations to act because, they remember, “what is at stake is their health.”
The neighbors recognize that the asbestos problem in Badia del Vallés is “very complicated” and that they are neither technicians nor experts to “give lessons to anyone.”
However, they regret that more than two years after presenting the Asbestos Map, financed by the residents and the council, and the announcement of the subsidy from the Generalitat to remove the mineral, “nothing has still been done while the buildings are “According to the initial plans, all the asbestos should be removed by the end of next year and it has not even started,” says one of them.
Both Juan José Díaz and Arturo Cortés, members of the Asbestos Commission, made up of residents and the municipal government, regret that they see the municipality’s City Council as “lost and overwhelmed by circumstances” and that the Waste Agency of Catalonia, which should support it, coordinating the performance, he also does not seem to know how to act.
An example of this disorientation, they add, are the changes in course when facing the removal of asbestos. If at the time we opted for prior encapsulation, that is, the protection of the most damaged elements to prevent the release of asbestos fibers, now we have opted for the direct removal of the fiber cement. “They have had to change because both bids have been void because no company met the previous experience requirement,” they add.
These changes have made the Asbestos Map, the agreed roadmap that served to measure the state of degradation and the presence of fiber cement throughout the housing stock, to carry out an economic assessment of the cost of removing asbestos and, therefore, Lastly, to develop a strategy for its extraction, has become outdated, they say.
Regarding the economic cost of the withdrawal, residents doubt that the 4.5 million budgeted can solve the problem. In this sense, they assure that this money would cover the removal of elements, but not the replacement of the downspouts still in use or the roofs of many buildings that are made of fiber cement and should be replaced. “It seems that what should be removed is budgeted but not what should be put in,” they point out.
“We want them to remove the asbestos now. If the city council needs more technical help, it should ask for it and the administrations should come to an agreement, but our obligation as neighbors is to force them to do what they promised,” says Cortés.
Along these lines and given the current situation of paralysis, the Asbestos Commission is holding an information meeting this Thursday night to decide how to exert maximum pressure. Díaz and Cortés explain that they will propose resuming mobilizations and protest events and even taking legal action against the administrations.
They remember that the removal of asbestos is not an “aesthetic” operation and that what is at stake is the health of the nearly 14,000 residents of Badia del Vallès.
