The Association for the Environmental Defense of Arenas de Cabrales has made public the situation of "fed-up" that is experienced in the locality after almost two years demanding without success detailed information and real possibilities of participation regarding the future biogas plant, while the different administrations continue to offer no conclusive explanations.
The collective recalls that the initiative received a negative report from the Commission of Urbanism and Land Planning of Asturias (Cuota) and reproaches that, despite this, the Government of the Principality has reiterated that it sees the project as viable and that it will support the City Council in opening a new administrative procedure.
The organization assures that it has been trying for months to meet with the competent political authorities and that, in practice, it has only received silence in response. They consider it "serious" that they have chosen not to face a project that, in their opinion, is going to "condemn" the future of the village.
Furthermore, the association emphasizes that Arenas de Cabrales is not an isolated industrial estate, but a populated, tourist, and commercial nucleus located at the gates of the Picos de Europa. For this reason, it demands a thorough study of the possible impacts of the plant: odors, increased heavy traffic, noise pollution, emissions, gas management, safety, and environmental repercussions on a local economy strongly linked to tourism.
The collective points out that it does not position itself against farmers, cheesemakers, or against the DOP Cabrales or Gamonéu, but rejects that the environmental and social costs of a specific activity be transferred to the entire population. In this context, it recalls that the installation of a biogas plant was previously proposed in councils such as Onís, Llanes, or Cangas de Onís, where it was ultimately discarded by their municipal authorities.
However, it laments that in Cabrales the initiative has gone ahead with the approval of the mayor and has been promoted with "total opacity," without informing the neighbors while the deadlines for submitting allegations were consumed, in what they qualify as a deliberately silent strategy.
Finally, the association expresses its concern about the intention to develop the plant with agrolinera, a company without accredited experience in the management of this type of facilities, which, they warn, generates significant uncertainties about the reliability of the project. Therefore, they demand that verifiable information be provided about the company's history, the planned safety protocols, the specific measures against odors, and the economic guarantees that would be offered in case of possible damages.