The Guadarrama has always been a source of life, but since part of its banks were declared a national park, they cannot, by law, house constructions of any kind. These regulations serve to prevent become sources of contamination for protected areas.
Unfortunately, the course of this river already receives wastewater from several municipalities, something that many environmental associations have been denouncing for years, since the Accumulation of garbage and pollution can cause dire consequences in people and animals.
More illegal settlements in Guadarrama
In recent days, a group of environmentalists has detected a new illegal settlement in a specially protected non-developable area. Located in the municipality of Navalcarnero, It is being built within the Regional Park of the “Middle Course of the Guadarrama River and its surroundings.””, on the banks of the river.
Raúl Navarrete, spokesperson for the environmental organization, declared: “we demand that the authorities proceed immediately and urgently to its stoppage and dismantling“, to prevent the problem from escalating and becoming a new case of perpetual illegal settlement that aggravates the intense degradation of the Regional Park.”
The affected area is a plot located about 400 meters north of the R-5 highway bridge on the Guadarrama River, next to Carril Toledano. This plot is protected under the protection figures of Regional Park, LIC (Place of Community Interest) and ZEC (Special Conservation Area) due to its high environmental values. Likewise, it is protected by 2 elements of the regional law on Livestock Routes. Specifically, it is within the “Descansadero Zarzuela o del Vado del Río Guadarrama” and the “Cordel de Casarrubuelos”. It is also classified as “Specially Protected Non-Developable Land” by current urban planning legislation.
For Navarrete, “This means that this new settlement cannot acquire urban services, neither paving roads, nor waste collection, nor sewage. The streets flood as soon as it rains or the river’s flow rises, the domestic garbage and waste will end up in the river and scrap metal will accumulate. “This makes life in these places really difficult.”
It is a new area of recently built buildings, on a rustic plot made up of a cultivation area and an old agricultural house. Despite its state of abandonment and without any use for years, the area was in a good state of conservation. On the other hand, this new illegal nucleus, with several buildings already built and several more under construction, is filling the area with large quantities of scrap metal and garbage. As a consequence, like other settlements in the area, the families who live there suffer unhealthy conditions.
Environmentalists fear, if the authorities do not prevent it, “that the The area will rapidly degrade and become a new pollution black spot in the Guadarrama River Regional Park.. Not in vain, they have been fighting for nearly 20 years for the elimination of illegal constructions, the relocation of the affected population, the cleaning of the numerous landfills and for the environmental restoration of the invaded areas,” says the environmental spokesperson.