Denounce the Petra City Council and two companies for dumping asphalt remains
The investigations of the Seprona began in November 2025 and were closed at the end of last June
PalmaThe Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard of Sant Joan has opened a file and formalized a complaint against three parties involved in the accumulation and dumping of asphalt waste on rustic roads, squares, and public spaces in the municipality. The reported parties are the Ajuntament de Petra, a construction company specializing in public works based in Palma, and a local entrepreneur in forestry machinery and general works.
The complaint, which consists of an extensive informational file with detailed graphic documentation, has been filed with the Directorate General for Circular Economy, Energy Transition and Climate Change of the Government of the Balearic Islands. The Seprona attributes to the reported parties a serious infraction of the Law on Waste and Contaminated Soils for having deposited and spread asphalt residues with bituminous material on various rustic paths and urban parking lots in the municipality "without any kind of environmental authorization or control".
The Seprona investigations began in November 2025 and concluded last June. During the autumn of last year, agents found in situ a machine with the screen printing corresponding to the company of one of the defendants carrying out asphalting tasks on the Camí dels Rentadors in Petra, next to the old slaughterhouse. This led to multiple field inspections in the following months until reaching 2026. During this time, the investigators noted the massive presence of these waste materials accumulated in various places in the municipality which have since been used for roads and squares.
The origin of the asphalt remains is the key to understanding the three-way complaint. The construction company hired by the Department of Roads of the Consell de Mallorca to carry out works on the Ma-3340 and Ma-3301 is the manager of the waste that was subsequently used by the Petra City Council to level roads and squares, tasks that were commissioned to a local self-employed businessman.
In the file, up to eight locations are detailed where the remains of capped asphalt from road improvement works were deposited: in the parking lot at the entrance to Petra (Ma-3220), with paving of 1,500 m² with about 20 m³ of asphalt poured and 10 m³ accumulated; on the Rentadors road, a deposit along 964 meters in length (about 60 m³ of asphalt); on the Son Puça road (Son Roca), where it was poured along 920 meters (about 35 m³); on the Son Frare road, with a deposit over 500 linear meters (23 m³); on the Son Dalmau road, where a deposit occurred over 400 linear meters (16 m³); in the parking lot of the Son Puput road, with the paving of 1,000 m² (8 m³); at the Petra train station, where a large volume was stored (about 22 m³) and, finally, on the shoulder of the Ma-3340, where 5 m³ were accumulated.
Verbal order
In the file there is a statement made last June by the businessman who carried out the tasks. In the statement he acknowledged that he did the work "on direct verbal order" from the Councilor for Roads and the mayor of Petra, assuring that it was "urgent" works.
Furthermore, on June 12, 2026, the businessman appeared at the Seprona facilities in Sant Joan to submit three budgets (for amounts of €4,961.00, €4,114.00, and €4,743.20) which included the concept of recycled asphalt or crushed asphalt. In this regard, the police dossier begins with "Surprisingly" and highlights the inconsistency in the dates and numbering of these documents. The private businessman argued before the Civil Guard that the bituminous mixtures were "property of the Petra City Council" and that the Council provided them for road conditioning.
The construction company for the rehabilitation works of the surface on roads Ma-3340 and Ma-3301 awarded by the Consell de Mallorca responded to the Civil Guard's requests and assured that the 3,168 tons of milled asphalt were delivered entirely to the authorized manager. If a search is carried out online, this manager is listed on the construction company's website as an "associated facility".
However, Seprona has found "a total spatial and temporal coincidence" between the road works and the appearance of asphalt on the roads of Petra. The Civil Guard instructor concludes in the report that "a partial volume of the waste could have been diverted to third parties in order to economize the expenses" incurred by transport and treatment at an authorized management plant.
The Civil Guard has requested information from the Service of Exploitation and Conservation of the Consell de Mallorca to find out if the asphalting tender included a specific financial allocation for waste management and if it has carried out exhaustive control, although, as of the date of the complaint, no official response had been received from the island institution.
Consulted by Tot Pla, the mayor of Petra, Salvador Femenias, who does not appear in the file as a witness, explains that when the construction company left the asphalt remains to reuse on the roads in poor condition and to compact the public car parks in the municipality, "I took it for granted that there was no problem in reusing it. I didn't go into detail about whether there was asphalt in the remains and I didn't think it had to be treated as waste, because we don't do the road works ourselves".
"We did it in good faith, because it was to fix roads that have potholes. And now, what are we going to do? We will file an appeal against the complaint and if it doesn't go well, we will have to pay the fine that corresponds to us," he explains. The file has now been left in the hands of the Waste and Contaminated Soils Service of the CAIB, which will have to open the corresponding sanctioning file against the Petra City Council, the company awarded the road improvements, and the businessman who carried out the tasks on the roads and squares for the illicit management and dumping of unauthorized waste.