We had some very good news this week concerning our efforts to prevent the SIEPAC high-tension power line from passing along the beach and through Matapalo. On Wednesday, ICE lost their appeal of an earlier court decision which prevents them from installing the line along the beach. The case was tried in the Sala Primera, one of the four Supreme Courts of Costa Rica.
As you may remember, the ICE/SIEPAC consortium has been sued by two persons from Matapalo to prevent them from bringing the lines through the village. The two persons, José (Chepe) Briseño and Ronald ?, are acting as representatives of the entire village, and the suit is supported financially by donations from local citizens. To date, most of the financial support is coming from the Chamoro family and several Belgians who own property in the San Andres hills. The attorney for the two men is a young firebrand from Perez Zeledon who argued very persuasively in the hearing.
On Wednesday, the day of the hearing, around 35 people from Matapalo and the surrounding area, myself included, met at 4:00 a.m. at the football field to load into two buses and 3 private cars to make the trip to San Jose. All were dressed simply, in blue jeans and clean white shirts, with some students wearing their school uniforms. When the hearing before the 3 judges began at 9:00 a.m. every available seat in the courtroom was filled with the earnest folks from Matapalo, Portalón and San Andres. An overflow group waited patiently outside for news as the day progressed. The spectators represented a wonderful cross-section of the area; young and old, mostly Tico with a few estranjeros scattered among them.
The 2 representatives from ICE/SIEPAC and their two attorneys sat at a table on one side of the room, while Chepe, Ronald, their attorney and an attorney from the Municipalidad de Quepos sat across the room. The ICE/SIEPAC people, one woman and three men, were all dressed in suits and ties and appeared very corporate and professional. The Matapalo side all sported short-sleeved open-neck shirts and blue jeans.
The discussions in the hearing basically settled down to four points:
o ICE/SIEPAC failed to hold a public hearing, as required by law, after they changed the route from the original mountain route to the beach
o The amended route fails to bypass a population center by the required 500 meters
o The Municipalidad de Quepos was never consulted about the change even though the amended route runs through the seat of the Canton of Savegre
o The environmental impact analysis failed to sufficiently consider the fact that the amended route passes extremely close (40-50 meters by ICE’s own estimate) to the protected wetlands of the Portalón River watershed and in addition passes directly overhead of the springs providing Matapalo’s water supply.
The judges’ decision, issued the following afternoon, supported the original court decision barring ICE from using the beach route. Apparently the ICE attorneys even had the cajones to ask the judges if ICE could begin work on the beach route anyway, while awaiting the result of an appeal. The judges’ response apparently went along the lines of “are you out of your @#$% minds?” ICE can appeal the decision one more time, but in order to do so they would need to convince the courts that they have new evidence to present, something that would probably be very difficult at this point.
So while the final outcome of our struggle is yet to be determined, things are looking very good now.
Stay tuned.
