The workers of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), an agency of the Generalitat that manages hydraulic works, river sanitation and environmental protection, are preparing protest actions. These could be developed this Wednesday, in response, among other reasons, to the promise of the Climate Action Minister, David Mascort, to “reorganize” the Agency’s water supply area (from which the monitoring plan is applied). of the emergency against drought). The promise was extracted from the councilor on Thursday by the groups of farmers who have mobilized to ask, among other things, for solutions to face the problem of drought.
The complaint of the ACA workers is very much a counter-reply to some of the farmers’ demands and the requests they have made in the heat of the agrarian protests, among them the dismissal of the director of the ACA, Samuel Reyes.
The farmers asked for his dismissal, although Mascort refused to talk about dismissals.
Today, Monday, a meeting of the works council will be held with the management in which they hope to receive information that resolves their concerns, and the result of which can guide the evolution of the conflict.
The ACA workers denounce that there is an operation to target them with the intention of presenting them as responsible for cutting water supplies for agricultural irrigation by 80% in the current emergency phase, an accusation that they consider totally unfair.
The Agency’s works council released a statement on Friday in which it reflected the “discomfort” and “indignation” caused by the promise of the Climate Action Minister, David Mascort. On Friday they tried to clarify the details of this proposal, but they could not do so, so they hope to clear up doubts today in the meeting with the director of ACA.
“We want to make it clear that we are totally against the arbitrariness with which this matter is being carried out,” says the statement, which arises above all from the desire to vindicate the “very good task” carried out by those responsible for the area. of ACA supply.
The statement is, therefore, an endorsement from the works committee towards the person responsible for the supply area, Jordi Molist, who has been the person identified as responsible for the water cuts in the context of the tractor units, and whose work has been defended and vehemently valued by the works committee.
The mobilization that is being prepared would consist of calling for a “total strike of the ACA” in support of the supply area on Wednesday, the 6th, at 12 noon at the headquarters of this organization in Barcelona and in the territorial delegations.
The workers consulted by this newspaper allege that they have not decided on the cuts in water supplies, that their task is “exclusively technical” and that the decision to reduce water availability (80% in the case of agriculture) is fruit of the application of the roadmap established in the 2020 Special Drought Plan (PES).
This document – ??they indicate – was approved in order to establish the various drought scenarios (alert, exceptionality, emergency) and program the measures that had to be adopted in each case to protect the set of activities. “The drought plan was approved when there was no drought, in a calm manner, as it should be. The cuts of 80% for agriculture or 25% for industry are the result of calculations that were made with cold analyzes to avoid greater effects on the country’s economy,” the same sources point out.
If agricultural irrigation were given preeminence, the effect would be to “cut off the water to Barcelona”, which would be a major disaster, due to its health implications, among others.
In this sense, and in response to the proposed solution, it is added that a possible solution would be to “subsidize” agricultural activities that may be harmed and thus compensate farmers for crops that are lost one year (replaceable by imports), In the same way that has been done in other catastrophe situations, such as Covid, aid was established for those affected by confinement.
“We comply with the roadmap of an approved plan that is endorsed by the Parliament. No personal decisions have been made. If these restrictions were not adopted from the supply area, the person could incur in prevarication,” they add.
The underlying problem (which explains the discomfort of various sectors in the face of the effects of the drought, including agriculture) is the lack of implementation of the investments programmed in the hydrological plan for the Catalan basins 2009-2015. This document was designed by the tripartite government after the 2007-2008 drought and was designed precisely to avoid the risks of repeating restrictions like those that already existed then, since the models already foreseen scenarios in which situations such as the current (with limitations on water use).
This plan included, among other major works, the two new desalination plants (Tordera II in Blanes and Foix); but the arrival of the financial crisis, the need to return the loans for works carried out to face the previous drought and the failure to comply with the clause of the third additional provision of the Statute (which obliged the State to carry out hydraulic works in Catalonia until 2013) It made the currently urgent investments remain on the sidelines.
Catalonia was a pioneer in the implementation of the water fee, intended largely for sanitation, but this has meant that the central Administration has been freed from making these contributions with the State budgets.
“The two desalination plants should have been financed with the resources of the third additional clause of the State; since with the water fee we cannot face the macro-investments; these have to come from the general budgets of the State, as happens with roads or other services “, these sources say.
Since 2019 the cycle has changed. In Catalonia, in recent years it has been possible to generate more income for the ACA than investments, which has given rise to a surprising treasury surplus, very striking given the shortcomings. Since the economic crisis, an administrative and bureaucratic system was generated in the public administration (verification, intervention, certification…) that has caused a loss of agility in the investments of the ACA and in other administrations, these sources admit.
