Nosara

ADIN Selling Gravel for Nosara Dike is Legal

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The Nosara Integral Development Association (ADIN) is selling gravel to JCB, the company in charge of carrying out the dredging and dike formation work on the Nosara River, and according to Joanna Mendez, the geologist hired by the National Emergency Commission (CNE- Comision Nacional de Emergencias), this activity is being done legally.

There is a quarry for extracting materials such as gravel on the property of ADIN located at the intersection of the communities of San Pedro and Santa Teresa of Nosara, next to the community fairground. The property is almost seven hectares (17.3 acres).

Mendez explained that “the exploitation of the quarry is legal” because it had the approval of the CNE to be exploited and to use the land for the sale of gravel, the material that serves as the basis of the dike.

Furthermore, in an official communication dated October 28, 2014, Mendez informed the Nicoya sub regional office of the Tempisque Conservation Area (ACT- Area de Conservacion Tempisque) about a visit from SINAC to verify what vegetation and ecosystems are present at the extraction sites to be used, including ADIN’s quarry.

In this particular regard, Pablo Zamora Morales, an engineer with SENARA, the entity in charge of supervising the work, explained that “a forestry engineer from SINAC was present, who made an appraisal along with the geologist from the CNE, [Joanna Mendez].”

On the other hand, CNE’s contract bidding rules allow the use of material when the company providing the service (JCB) does not have enough material to do so.

Another factor that was taken into account in the choice of ADIN’s land was the distance between the quarry and the project site, which should not be more than 5 kilometers (3.1 miles). The distance from the quarry [of ADIN] is 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles), so it complies with CNE’s stipulations,” Zamora assured.

In addition, Zamora indicated that in total, 133,000 cubic meters of transported material was approved by the CNE, which is used as a nucleus for forming the layers of the dike.

Marco Avila gave The Voice of Guanacaste copies of two invoices to JCB Constructora Alquiler. The first is dated January 5, 2015 and records an amount of ₵10,068,000 (about $18,996). The second invoice is from January 15, 2015 in the amount of ₵12,678,000 (about $23,920). Both documents record more than 100 trips daily made in 10 days by JCB dump trucks to the ADIN quarry and later deposited at the project site.

ADIN charges JCB ₵6,000 (about $11.30) per dump truck trip. “There is nothing hidden. The association isn’t worried because it is doing things with transparency and those who want to investigate us or file a complaint against us can do,” Avila affirmed.

The final stage of work on dredging and forming the dike along the Nosara River began in November of 2014 and since then, JCB has extracted material from ADIN’s quarry.

The quarry is part of the sports grounds that ADIN acquired in October of 2014 for a price of more than $350,000. The exploitation of the quarry is one of ADIN’s strategies to be able to make the monthly payments for the purchase, which total more than ¢13 million ($24,500) during the first three years. 

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