Coal-fired plants had better come clean: Dominican environmentalists

Santo Domingo.- A prominent environmental group on Friday asked the Superior Arbitration Court to issue an injunction against State-owned Electric Utility (CDEEE) CEO Ruben Jimenez Bichara, to force him to divulge the legal documents for the land where the coal-fired plants are being built in Punta Catalina, in southern Peravia province.

The National Committee to Fight Climate Change filed the request to order the CDEEE to provide the cadastral surveys and titles for the land, the decree declaring it eminent domain, purchase or lease contract and its owners’ names.

“Dominican society has the right to know under what legal actions or under what terms the government has spent, as Jimenez himself has said, more than US$400.0 million on the privately owned land,” the environmentalists said, quoted by eldia.com.do.

They note that although the CDEEE and the contractors Odebrecht-Acero Estrella submitted the project’s site with 2. 25 million square meters of land to the Environment Ministry, its title or decree on eminent domain were not annexed.

Among the Committee members who filed the complaint figure Elizabeth Tejada Gallardo, José René Olivo Salazar, Domingo Acevedo, Wilfredo Velazquez Gomez, Rafael Enrique de León, Rubén Toribio Rosario, Demetrio Urbi and Fausto Aybar Ureña.