Fenacore questions the EU report on hydrological planning in Spain
The president of the National Federation of irrigators communities (Fenacore), Andrés del Campo, has questioned the report of the Committee on Petitions of the European Union on the Spanish hydrological planning, in which it is recommended to completely change water management and prioritizing environmental criteria against socioeconomic.
Del Campo has qualified the said report ‘biased and subjective’ was recently interviewed in Brussels with representatives of that Commission for giving counterarguments this opinion made following complaints from environmentalists and regional governments. As it stated hydrological plans scrupulously comply with EU environmental regulations, having obtained a higher 80% support the National Water Council.
In this regard, the European report, which will be voted next 13th Jul, requests monitor the implementation of EU law in relation to environmental flows in the Ebro and the Tagus, when the truth is, as counterarguments the president of Fenacore, “that these flows were defined by applying strict criteria both scientific and technical”. Moreover, he adds, they have set minimum in the different rivers and stretches of rivers when even the Water Framework Directive doesn’t require it, suggesting only ensure the quality of water bodies. Thus, in the case of Ebro, even it circulates by its Delta an amount greater than the minimum guaranteed (286 m3 / sec when the minimum is set between 80 and 150 m3 / second).
It also explains how in this second cycle substantial improvements even supposed to significantly reduce water availability for other uses such as irrigation were adopted, demonstrating that all those involved in achieving the plans aim to respect the rivers and recover the bodies of water. Thus, the Plan Tagus, for example, doubles the current strategic minimum reserve of reservoirs of Entrepeñas and Buendia, having risen from 240 cubic hectometres 400 hm3.
Water as a political weapon
The president of Fenacore complaints that the real problem is the policy water pollution, which is to be used more to seek votes in the general interest, making prevail the parochial interest, to the point that the rejection of hydrological plans limit funds for rural development in the 2016-2021 cycle. As an example, he regretted that Catalonia and Navarra resorted Plan Ebro Basin against the remaining communities through which also passes; controversy also repeated in the Tagus with the intention of preventing the transfer Tajo-Segura.
As for the water works, for Brussels it suggests contemplate other possibilities, del Campo recalled that although Europe has a natural regulation that allows you to have 40% of natural resources, has not stopped building hydraulic works to increase water security. In Spain, meanwhile, the percentage of regulation only reach 8% if there were no regulation works, thanks to which it is possible to use about 45% of the rainfall. He also warned that without them they could not live more than four million people in Spain during the summer, while thanks to these infrastructures live more than 70 million people, including tourists.
Source: FENACORE
