The Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court has decided to sue the Secretary of State for the Environment, dependent on the Ministry of Ecological Transition, for not demanding that they repair the environmental damage caused by the irregular extractions of water from the aquifer from which the emblematic park drinks. The Prosecutor’s Office opens this contentious process so that this department can exercise “its competence in matters of environmental responsibility, and agree on effective prevention measures, avoidance of new damage and reparation” against these farmers, as reported this Friday by the public ministry.
An investigation at the beginning of this decade by the nature protection service of the Civil Guard, Seprona, identified 250 farmers involved in illegal extractions of water from the aquifer in 2022 and 2023. The vast majority were in the province of Huelva (198), but also in Seville (51) and Cádiz (1). That investigation arose after Doñana was not adequately protected.
After that ruling, the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Court opened pre-procedural proceedings – an investigation prior to the presentation of a lawsuit or complaint – on environmental liability in May 2023, which concluded a year ago.
However, last October the Secretary of State for the Environment rejected these claims through a resolution. The Ministry understood that it was not “the competent body for this because the damage is not exclusive to the Public Hydraulic Domain, but involves interconnected ecosystems and the environment in general and, in particular, the entire Doñana area whose protection and management corresponds to the Junta de Andalucía.” It is precisely this resolution that Manuel Campoy, prosecutor of the National Court, has now challenged before the Contentious Chamber of this judicial body.
What Campoy basically requests in his lawsuit is that the magistrates force the ministry “to process the procedure for demanding environmental responsibility” and to establish a “judicial deadline for compliance” to determine “whether or not there is environmental responsibility of the identified operators, and the adoption, where appropriate, of the relevant measures that must be agreed upon, for prevention, avoidance of new damage and repair.” In its letter, the Prosecutor’s Office also proposes that this process be communicated to the Junta de Andalucía, the Administration indicated by the Secretary of State for the Environment in its October letter as the one that has the powers.
