Toledo (EFE) of its basin, to demand effective measures from the administrations to keep them in good condition, among them the end of the transfer, “through living rivers, not sewers”.
This has been sung by those gathered in the Plaza de Zocodover in the capital of Castilla-La Mancha, who have vindicated it through numerous banners that read ‘For a living Tagus, the towns of La Vega united for life del Tajo’, by Jarama Vivo; ‘No to the Tajo-Segura transfer’, from the Assembly for the defense of the Tajo de Aranjuez; ‘The Tagus is dying’ or ‘For a clean Manzanares for Getafe’, by Perales del Río.
In the reading of the participating groups, together with the local Toledo Platform in defense of the Tagus, Ampa Colegio ‘San Lucas y María’, ARBA Toledo, AAVV ‘La Cava’, AAVV ‘El Ciudadano’ or the Platform ‘8M Toledo’ , among others, were also from Talavera de la Reina (Platform in defense of the Tagus and Alberche rivers, and the ‘Ardeidas’ Association), from Numancia de la Sagra, from the province of Toledo, or from Guadalajara (Ecologists in Action).
At the state level, among many others, AEMS-Ríos con Vida, ARBA, COAGRET, the ‘New Water Culture’ Foundation, Liberum Natura, Mensa Cívica or sectors of Local Administration and Road and Logistics of CCOO, or Seo/Birdlife have joined. from Spain, and ‘Climáximo’ and ‘proTejjo-Movimiento Pelo Tejo’, from Portugal.
The importance of concentration for the defense of the Tagus
In statements to the media, the president of the Toledo Platform in defense of the Tagus, Alejandro Cano, has defended the concentration, due to the “truly unfortunate nature” of the Tagus of which they have become “aware”, especially entities of the Community of Madrid affected, to demand the involvement of autonomies and town halls, as well as the Government of Spain itself “in the state of conservation of our rivers”.
“For 20 years the rivers have continued as they are: absolutely exhausted, agonizing, cadaverous, full of contamination and, of course, subject to transfers,” Cano denounced, who indicated that “for one reason or another” compliance with the basin plans have not been fulfilled because “it was announced that there was going to be money, but in the end there has been no financing”.
Cano has made it very clear that the five sentences issued by the Supreme Court (TS) are “not complied with” as well as the Water Framework Directive when “the flow is something to be respected from the beginning to the end of the planning cycle.”
“What we are looking for is very simple: that the rivers continue to be rivers, that they continue to be alive, that they give us water for life, that they are not subject to extraction, and that is where our lives depend, because rivers are the arteries of the territories and as long as these arteries are impoverished or clogged or contaminated, the territory and its inhabitants will obviously be impoverished and contaminated”, he remarked.
The change after the collapse of the Mar Menor
Regarding the opposition to the new rules of the Tagus Hydrological Plan, recently approved in January, in the Region of Murcia, Cano has been blunt: “Since 2015, when the Mar Menor collapsed, many groups that were absolutely silenced, have not they could speak out against industrial agriculture, so predatory, they have realized that something was being done wrong and there has been a reaction, a response to that model”.
“It is positive, because the error is recognized and it lays the foundations to change something that, unfortunately, has not spread in Castilla-La Mancha, which is making the cut and paste of that agro-industrial model”, he criticized, adding that “if The Mar Menor served Murcia well, in our region a part of the Tablas de Daimiel is already collapsed and, nevertheless, irrigation has spread everywhere”.
The member of the Assembly for the defense of the Tagus River in Aranjuez, Melquiades Molinero, has called for “effective measures to recover the Tagus” which, in his opinion, involve “establishing an effective regime of environmental flows that includes controlled measures to recover the morphology of the channel and an effective purification of all the contamination that comes from the Metropolitan Area of Madrid”.
Ecological flows now, not in five years
Something with which Nuria Hernández, from the Citizen Network for a New Water Culture in the Tagus and the ‘Nueva Cultura’ Foundation, has agreed, who has demanded that “an ecological flow regime be established now, not within four to five years”.
Among technical aspects that can solve the problem of the Tagus, Hernández has focused “on reducing the pressure on the extraction basin in the transfer, the purification of the waters of Madrid and that the public administrations adopt courageous measures”, because “the situation cry out to heaven”, he launched, referring not only to the Tagus but also to many other rivers, the Ebro or several of Andalusia.
