The Xunta announced this Wednesday that it will present an appeal for the Government to claim from the shipowner of the Toconao ship the 2.37 million euros that it claims has been spent on the beach surveillance and cleaning operation caused by the spill of 26,250 kilograms of pellets, of which a fifth, 5.5 tons, have been recovered.

The acting second vice president of the Volunteers and city councils have recovered 1.88 tons, which is 5.53 tons, the equivalent of 201 bags of the 1,050 that the ship was carrying.

Vázquez explained that there is a 2007 state law that establishes the principle that “the polluter pays” and since the Xunta has not polluted, it must be others who pay the expenses incurred by the autonomous Government, he explained.

As indicated in a press conference to take stock of the spill that occurred last December, once the Government has not responded to the Xunta’s request to claim these costs from the shipowner, the regional Executive will appeal “the negative administrative silence ” at your request in order to receive these funds. “Since they did not help when they had to take charge of everything (the Government) sues whoever has to sue, if not there will be something strange, I do not want to believe that there was abandonment of functions,” warned the minister, who pointed out that it is It is the Government’s responsibility to claim these funds.

The acting Minister of the Environment has highlighted that the regional operation has recovered another 20,238 kilograms of other plastic waste, “almost four times more than pellets”, which shows a problem of contamination by this material and the need for awareness by part of the citizens.

In total, the Xunta operation acted on 633 beaches, 65% of the total, of the 66 municipalities of the 77 that have sandy beaches in the community. Furthermore, both Vázquez and Villares have insisted on comparing the “transparent” and adequate action of the regional Executive with that of the Government which, according to their version, did not notify the Xunta of the spill until January 3 despite the fact that it occurred on January 8. December in Portuguese waters, since the powers for collecting pellets at sea are state-owned.

According to Villares, the means made available by the Government, “well below those requested, despite the fact that they asked to raise the alert level, show that there was no will to lend a hand, it was other things.” “After the passage of time it is shown that for many – the Government and the opposition – it was more a political issue than a scientific one,” Vázquez concluded.

The acting second vice president has also criticized that the Government has declared Galicia and other autonomous communities catastrophic zones due to civil protection emergencies when “at the time it was not up to the task and now months later it makes this declaration” which will be seen if goes ahead or remains “in a headline”, and for which the Xunta does not know the criteria, since the impact on each of them is not the same.