During the past plenary session in the Calp City Council, the ratification of the decree was approved by which a contentious-administrative appeal will be filed against the expansion of the fish farm in the Calpina bay. The new step was announced last October after learning that the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition had dismissed the previous appeal for replacement that it filed last April.
This new contentious administrative appeal will be based on two main aspects. On the one hand, the landscape impact that this facility has on the Calpine coast and, on the other, a new study on the effects of the fish farm on sea currents. This is because the study carried out and presented by the company that owns the fish farm corresponds to the Villajoyosa currents and not to those of Calp.
The point was approved with the favorable votes of PP, Ciudadanos and Defendamos Calpe and the abstentions of Compromís and PSPV-PSOE. For his part, the spokesman for Defendamos Calpe, Paco Quiles, pointed out that "the fish farm is there because the law allows it, the economic impact has been argued but the law does not recognize it, there is a path in terms of the environment and the currents".
The Compromís spokesman, Ximo Perles, was against the expansion of the fish farm but pointed out that "without the study of currents it is difficult to support this action." The socialist spokesman, Santos Pastor, affirmed that "all this has a dimension that goes beyond the municipal sphere, do we have a legal and administrative basis to go ahead with a dispute?"
Finally the mayor, Ana Sala, announced: "I have a halo of optimism for the institutional support from the Alicante Provincial Council and we have learned that the President of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, has been interested and concerned about the issue of fish farms and has promised to review it ".
In this way, Calp continues its fight against the expansion of the fish farm, which will go from 12 to 45 floating cages, as well as a maximum production capacity of 3.000 tons of fish per year.
The Calp City Council called two protest rallies in addition to filing an appeal for reversal against the decision of the then Minister of Agriculture, Mireia Mollá. This was rejected because, according to Mollá argued in a meeting with the mayoress and different economic sectors of the municipality, the procedure followed to grant the expansion permit complied with existing regulations and, therefore, it was not possible to revoke that authorization. Mollá pointed out at the same time that the Ministry was not responsible for evaluating the visual and landscape impact of the infrastructure.
Both the City Council and several Calpe associations, such as the Real Club Náutico de Calpe, the Fishermen's Association or the Calpe Businessmen's Association, have shown from the outset their resounding rejection of the expansion of this infrastructure precisely because of the visual impact it causes in a tourist municipality like Calp, but also due to the environmental and economic impact. In fact, one of the reports on which the appeal for replacement presented by the City Council was based estimated the losses that a macro-farm of these characteristics in the town could cause at around 450 million euros.
