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I have heard that now they are giving water again to irrigate the Canal d’Urgell. At the end of April, for the first time in its 161-year history, the Comunitat General de Regants, which supplies 120,000 people and 70,000 agricultural hectares in Lleida, closed the gates of its main channel.
At that time, I showed in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia how the landscape was at that time in the Claravalls area, in Urgell. Now, two months later and before they are given water again, this other photographic report shows how what used to be green is now dry, mowed down.
Recently, the general assembly of the Comunitat General de Regants dels Canals d’Urgell approved almost unanimously to allocate the reserves of 50 cubic hectometres of water, which the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE) has authorized, to save the harvest of fruit trees.
It is about 9,300 hectares (mainly apple and pear), which, in this way, will be able to carry out four irrigation shifts. Besides, a part of the water will be saved for the next campaign.
The report shows a Fuji apple plantation, which will benefit from this measure. As you can see in the images, they could well be bigger.
On the contrary, the measure “sacrifice” 13,000 hectares of summer cereal and fodder, crops that cannot be irrigated since the closure of the Canal d’Urgell at the end of April and for which farmers will be able to request aid, which will range between 700 and 900 euros per hectare, a figure that could increase.
We can also see pears. Two months ago they were small, very small. Now they have grown, I don’t know if enough, but they already have color and texture, as we see in these images.
In this other series of photographs we can also see a field of walnuts. It is still very green but there are quite a few. The signs that the property puts up so that the fruit that, for the moment, is still on the trees is not stolen, is striking.
Claravalls belonging to Tàrrega, in the Urgell region. These landscapes, with the cultivated fields, have a lot of history behind them, as the town is already documented in 1099 in the act of consecration of the church of Santa Maria de Guissona.
The rains of recent weeks have increased the water reserves in the Rialb-Oliana system, which is at 25% of its capacity with 120,000 cubic hectometres. In other words, more than double what there was at the end of April when the Canal d’Urgell closed irrigation just one month after the irrigation campaign began.
This improvement in reserves is what will now make it possible to irrigate the fruit trees, but, on the other hand, the tap is kept closed for 6,000 hectares of summer cereal and 7,000 of fodder, which would need 120 cubic hectometres of water, about 30 per shift, which current reservations prevent satisfying.
