The town hall of the Majorcan municipality of Sineu has paralyzed the construction process of the large poultry farm planned two kilometers from the town for around 750,000 laying hens – which would produce around 156 million eggs per year – and which, as the reported Greenpeace, would have become the most polluting in all of Spain. The facilities are also expected to consume more than 61,000 m3/year of water – the equivalent of around 25 Olympic swimming pools – in a city which itself is under severe pressure on its water resources. The project generated an avalanche of criticism from neighbors, administrations and environmental entities.
Last Thursday, the municipal council agreed to suspend, for one year, the granting and admission to processing of all types of authorizations and building permits related to intensive livestock activities in the context of all rural lands of the municipality, as published this Saturday in the Official Journal of the Balearic Islands (BOIB). This is a measure that de facto stops the treatment of the controversial macro-farm, promoted by the company Avícola Son Perot.
The municipality considers, with regard to rural land use planning and, more specifically, intensive livestock activities, that the current subsidiary standards (NNSS) of the municipality, approved in 1990, contain “insufficient and obsolete” regulations. , in particular with regard to which refers to measures to protect the landscape and the environment, to the mobility generated, as well as to the conditions of land and building occupation, which “are not adapted to current needs” of the city.
In this sense, the municipal corporation considers it necessary to carry out an exhaustive study of the carrying capacity that the rural territory of Sineu can assume, both to convert existing livestock activities into intensive activities and to establish new ones, as well as the conditions for reconversion or implementation of said activities. From there, once the conclusions of this study are obtained, the municipal council will proceed to modify the current NNSS.
As indicated in the BOIB publication, the Town Hall has decided to suspend licenses and authorizations with the aim of avoiding, during this phase of analysis prior to the modification, the consolidation of situations “contrary to the modified planning once it has been modified”. -this definitively approved”. . “.
As the mayor of Sineu, Bertomeu Mulet, said in statements to elDiario.es, agricultural activity “must be encouraged, but adapted to the territory, with a reduced number of animals and respectful of the environment.” In the case of the macrofarm, he deplores that it is an infrastructure of 750,000 chickens, some of which are free-ranging, which “would destroy the entire oak forest which surrounds the farm”. The mayor also highlights the odors that the activity would generate, the pressure that the installations would exert on water resources, the contamination of aquifers and the problems that would arise on the road that leads to the land with the increase in heavy traffic. the outskirts of the urban center.
The project documents specifically envisage the construction of up to ten agricultural buildings for chickens – three of 2,041 m2 each for breeding, four of 5,256 m2 each for raising chickens on the ground and three others of 3 343 m2 for free-range chickens. —in addition to a classification center and a packaging warehouse, a porch for waste containers, a warehouse next to tanks for drinking water, a 14,000 square meter manure dump, several wastewater pits, a prefabricated leachate basin , sanitary fords, a well and various stages for propane tanks.
Last September, the Consell de Mallorca published a report unfavorable to this project, alleging, among other reasons, that the proposal did not refer to certain mandatory municipal and regional regulations. The island institution considers that the project presented “makes no reference to current municipal planning” nor to the “procedure for activities subject to integrated environmental authorization (AAI)”, nor to the documentation required by the impact study on the environment (AIA). .
The company’s intention is to gradually close the facilities it has on the outskirts of the municipality of Llucmajor and move the activity to Sineu to adapt it, as indicated in its project, to which elDiario.es has had access , “a “new market needs, compliant with current regulations and the latest technological advances to guarantee animal welfare, optimize egg production and minimize the possible environmental impact of the activity.”
Among environmental entities, Greenpeace sparked the debate by publishing a statement in which it denounced that, based on the calculations carried out by the NGO, the direct consumption of water by the macrofarm, without taking into account that necessary to produce food for chickens. , would be more than 61,000 m3/year, or a third of the consumption estimated for Sineu. For environmentalists, the project would worsen the situation of the town, which has not been able to consume its water for more than a decade due to nitrate contamination.
The entity complains, in this sense, that the project lacks specific calculations to show the impacts it would have on the environment. “If compared with other operating industrial poultry farms, only in terms of emissions of ammonia, a toxic gas with harmful effects on the environment and human health, this industrial farm would become the largest poultry farm of the world”. polluting corral in the country”, added the NGO, which warns of the “pharaonic dimensions” of the project: ten industrial warehouses to which would be added other support installations, as well as slag heaps and manure pits to store the enormous quantities of manure that would be generated by such a number of animals.
For its part, Avícola Son Perot announced on September 30 that its legal team would evaluate publications in the media or social networks and the actions carried out on the macrofarm with the aim of determining “opportune actions” aimed at “protecting its integrity and reputation”. The company expressed “concern” over the alleged publication of “inaccurate data, incorrect information and unfounded hoaxes” related to this infrastructure.
