How is it possible to approve a multi-million Euro levy without knowing whom we might be flooding with sewage?
The confession of ignorance from the City Council and the Board is not only irresponsible: it crosses the red line of institutional negligence. When managing public money—or, as in this case, private money administered under public guardianship—rigor is not a luxury: it is a legal and moral obligation.
But in this project, it seems rigor packed its bags. And left.
After analyzing the technical report and contrasting the information with political leaders, we have discovered a very serious fact, a black hole in the planning that, on its own, should invalidate the approval of the project: no one has quantified how many homes below the collector level will be condemned to pump sewage for life.
“Maybe there is one...”
The councilor's official response to such an elementary question as how many neighbors will not be able to drain by gravity was an administrative shrug.
“Some of the houses between street 5 and 6 are below...”
“The houses”, “Some”.
They say this when the neighbors themselves have notified affectations in many more streets: street 3, street 5, street 6, street 7, street 9, street 10, street 19...
In a project of over 12 million Euros. This phrase could go down in the annals of poor public management. We are not talking about a school raffle. We are talking about a work that will indebt hundreds of families for years. That the administration that must watch over our interests—and the company that has charged to draft the project—do not know how many families will see their sanitation system modified forever is an insult to intelligence and an alarming dereliction of duty.
First-class citizens and second-class payers
Not quantifying this data is not an oversight: it is hiding a monumental comparative grievance. This project divides the urbanization into two categories of neighbors:
These latter neighbors will not only pay the same millionaire levy, but will carry a hidden mortgage:
- They will have to install private pumps (thousands of extra Euros).
- They will pay for electricity 24/7 for life.
- They will assume recurrent mechanical maintenance.
- They will change equipment every few years.
- They will live exposed to permanent sanitary risks.
The gravity trap
The technical memory tiptoes around this point, but physics does not forgive. If your house is below the collector, all the pressure of the general network is directed towards you.
It only takes a power cut, a pump breakdown, a blockage in the network, or an intense storm for, by pure gravity, the contents of the sewer to seek the lowest exit, that is: the toilets and drains of those “some houses”.
The sanitary, economic, and patrimonial impact of a home flooded by sewage is indescribable. And yet, the administration moves forward as if nothing is happening.
Technical negligence and political responsibility
How can an engineering company sign a project without calculating the necessary pumping stations? How can the Board defend a document that does not have this data? How can the City Council propose the approval of a levy without knowing the real impact on taxpayers?
The answer is as simple as it is worrying: the minimum mandatory work has not been done.
The reality—which is evident to anyone who knows the terrain, although they prefer to look the other way—is that it is not about one or two houses. It could be dozens.
Dozens of families who do not know that their future implies depending on an electric pump to be able to shower or flush the chain. That the technical memory does not quantify those affected is not just an error: it is professional imprudence that could have legal recourse.
Attempting to approve a project of this magnitude with such a level of uncertainty is not public management: it is playing Russian roulette with the neighbors' heritage.
We demand rigor before demanding money
Before asking for 12 million Euros from the neighbors, we demand something very basic: a real topographic study, house by house.
Because if the City Council and the Board intend for neighbors to sign a blank check without knowing if their house will end up flooded, then they have chosen the wrong path.
Ignorance does not exempt from compliance with the law. But deliberate ignorance in a millionaire project has a very clear name: patrimonial responsibility.
And when the time comes, if there is no rectification, cancellation of quotas, stoppage, and revision of the project, we will demand it by other means that could have a greater impact, especially in the media. The Platform of Affected by the Urbanization Project of Corbera de Llobregat could surely awaken many opinions on how all this is being managed.
María José, an affected neighbor.
December 2025