The mayor of Canelinha, Diogo Maciel, denounced during the public hearing held this Thursday (25), that the company Canelinha Serviços de Engenharia Ambiental LTDA tried to bribe the city hall to release the landfill in the city.
According to the city hall, since 2016, the company has been trying to obtain licenses and authorizations from the municipality to enable the construction of the landfill in the region. “The last complaint we made was an attempted corruption by the company itself to bring money to the city hall, even handing over what they paid in the past,” he alleged.
In the same year, the city council issued a land use and occupation certificate, which has now expired. A new certificate was issued in January 2021, paving the way for environmental licensing. However, city councilors questioned the reason for issuing this second certificate.
Company responsible for landfill tried to bribe City Hall to obtain environmental licenses – Photo: Jacson Botelho/NDTV RecordTV
More than 1 million square meters of private land that houses a eucalyptus forest, 37 thousand square meters would be occupied by the landfill. A legal action against the company has been underway since June 2023.
Landfill worries residents of Canelinha
Residents protested against the development and highlighted that the project would affect tourism in the region. “Canelinha is growing and expanding. Are they going to put a dump near the subdivisions in the Cobre neighborhood, one of the fastest growing? No place in Canelinha deserves a landfill”, said businessman Rubens Leal.
Even though guests were invited, representatives from the Santa Catarina Environmental Institute (IMA) and the company responsible for the project did not attend the public hearing, requested by the Canelinhense Tourism Association, which is against the construction of the landfill.
IMA pointed out flaws in issuing the environmental license
The IMA (Environmental Institute of Santa Catarina) reviewed LAP (Prior Environmental License) No. 1049/2021, issued in March, to the company Canelinha Serviços de Engenharia Ambiental Ltda, and admitted two errors in the document, described in the note technique nº 54/2021.
LAP describes that “the project foresees receiving up to 50 tons/day of class 2 waste”. According to IMA, there was a typing error and the maximum volume of waste allowed was corrected to up to 49.99 t/day, according to the process filed by the company on September 12, 2019, that is, a difference of 1 kg.
Remember the case
The company Canelinha Serviços de Engenharia Ambiental filed a licensing request with the IMA to build a 37,000 m² landfill in the Cobre neighborhood, in Canelinha.
The land is located in a reforestation area of more than one million square meters and covers part of the municipality of Tijucas. The IMA released the first of three necessary licenses without the mandatory Environmental Impact Study for landfills that receive a volume equal to or greater than 50 tons of waste per day.
The Institute also did not require the certificate of occupation and land use issued by Tijucas, raising suspicions of irregularities in the licensing process. At the address registered by the IRS as the company’s headquarters, there is only a fenced plot of land without any buildings.
The editorial team attempted to contact the company responsible for the landfill but, at the time of writing, had not received a response. The space remains open for demonstrations.
