Madrid (EFE) they are able to store because of the drought.
The budget, which “is being executed” and “in many cases are also transfers to the autonomous communities”, is intended not only to alleviate the drought, but to water policies in general, and is managed by two ministries -the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (Miteco) and that of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA)-, said the minister spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, at the press conference after the Council of Ministers this Wednesday.
According to Rodríguez, “never before in Spain” had so much been invested in this type of infrastructure to “respond to the needs, especially of the primary sector” with the use, in the absence of rain, of desalinated, reused and purified water.
The water reserve goes down again
Meanwhile, the water reserve has dropped again and stands at 49.6% -just over 27,800 cubic hectometres (hm³)- after losing 0.4% -251 hm³- in the last seven days, according to data provided by Miteco.
The figure is lower compared to the same week last year -when it reached 50.6%- and even lower compared to the average of the last decade -68.4%-, with the Guadalquivir basins, the internal ones of Catalonia and that of Guadalete-Barbate as the most affected -with percentages between 24.5 and 29.1%-, while those of Galicia Costa, Cantábrico Oriental and Cantábrico Occidental are those in the best conditions -with percentages between 80 .4 and 85.4%-.
With this panorama, the national president of Asaja, Pedro Barato, has advanced that the national board of directors of the main Spanish agrarian organization plans to organize mobilizations to demand concrete measures against the drought because -he has said- “with the things to eat you cannot He can play”.
One of these measures could be the use of water that goes from the cities to the sea: Barato has given Malaga as an example, because “with what it pours into the sea we would have 31,000 hectares of irrigated land for olive groves” but, in his opinion, “it is easier to talk about ecological flows”.
Barato has charged against the vice president of the European Commission for the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, and against the third vice president and head of Miteco, Teresa Ribera, whom he has described as “a bad enemy in Brussels and a bad enemy in Spain”. .
Awareness campaigns for the lack of water
Concern about the lack of water has increased awareness campaigns, such as the one launched by the Zaragoza City Council -which recently rose to the position of fourth most populous city in Spain- with the slogan “Let’s take care of every drop” to encourage citizens to reduce water consumption and make more efficient use of it.
This month also ends the public exposure period of the Ebro Hydrographic Demarcation Special Drought Plan before its final approval to update this tool.
The head of planning of the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation, Miguel Ángel Vera, recalled that drought “is nothing new” in Spain, where “tradition says that it occurs every five years”, so “it is something with which that we have to live together in the best possible way”, he remarked.
“Isolate” the drought of the electoral battle
The problem is so widespread that the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragonés, has insisted on the political parties to “isolate” the drought from the electoral battle, less than ten days before the start of the campaign for the next 28 elections. of May.
Also today, the Catalan Water Agency has announced that it will study the feasibility of expanding the Darnius-Boadella reservoir, in the Alto Ampurdán region (Girona), in order to store the rainfall from the short but very intense storms characteristic of the area.
In Extremadura, the regional leader of the PP, María Guardiola, has accused the president of this autonomous community, Guillermo Fernández Vara, of knowing the intention of the central government to demolish the Valdecaballeros dam (Badajoz) two years ago and of not having done anything to avoid it.
The demolition was ordered by a resolution of the Miteco that the Junta has formally appealed because according to Guardiola “it is yesterday when -Fernández Vara- feels the social and political pressure and says that this is nonsense” instead of opposing the first requirements that date March 2021.
The destruction of dams and dams has gone at great speed in recent years driven by the ministry led by Ribera which, based on the National River Restoration Strategy, dismantled, according to its own data and in 2021 alone, a total of 108 reservoirs , almost half of the 239 destroyed across Europe.
The entry The Government has 6,500 million for hydraulic investments with the reservoirs at 49.6% was first published in EFE Noticias.