The reasons for the opposition in the Ebro to the connection of the minitransfer with Barcelona

The worst drought in history in Catalonia has once again put the water of the Ebro and the territory of the Terres de l’Ebre, in the final stretch of the river, under the spotlight. It is the strategic point of water collection for the mini-transfer from the Ebro to Tarragona, in the irrigation canals, with a solid history of 35 years. It was started in 1989 to solve the historical supply problems in part of the Camp de Tarragona and the entire Costa Daurada.

History, sometimes stubborn, repeats itself. In the drought of 2008, the tripartite Government agreed with the government of Rodríguez Zapatero on the interconnection of water from the Ebro mini-transfer with Barcelona. Despite the almost total opposition of the Terres de l’Ebre, Madrid approved an emergency connection through a decree law. The rains came in spring and the works, which were ready, were paralyzed.

The oldest people in the Ebro delta say that on the first day of generous rains, the next drought begins to take shape, which will be worse. The current one, tougher than the one 16 years ago, has once again put on the table the emergency interconnection of the Ebro water network in Tarragona with that of the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona.

The current Government of the Generalitat rules it out, which releases part of the pressure on a territory that has its great value in the water of the Ebro. A complex and diverse society, the Catalan Ebro once again feels undervalued, accused of being unsupportive.

The rains up the Ebro River, in Aragón, Navarra or La Rioja, have allowed the reserves of the large reference reservoir for the area of ??the Lower Ebro basin, Mequinenza (Aragón), to be recovered. The reservoir is at 79.5% after opening floodgates on Tuesday. The Riba-roja and Flix reservoirs, already in the Ribera d’Ebre, are over 80%.

The situation is favorable and makes it possible to guarantee the supply of drinking water to the municipalities in the province of Tarragona connected to the mini-transfer. In the short and medium term there will be no restrictions on domestic use or in industrial and tourist use, strategic for Camp de Tarragona and the Costa Daurada, with giants such as petrochemicals or Port Aventura.

The flow that flows down the river along the entire Catalan stretch to the mouth is essential for the environmental resistance of the Ebro delta. If the arrival of fresh water through the river and the network of irrigation canals is reduced, this favors salinization. of the fertile soils of the plain, on both sides of the river, and harms its ecosystem. The claimed ecological flow is key.

“In the final stretch of the river, resources have long been insufficient for the socioeconomic and environmental maintenance of the area, and measures such as the interconnection of networks would further contribute to making it unsustainable. The most threatened space in Catalonia is the Delta, where ten million square meters of land have already been lost,” argues the Comunitat de Regants de l’Esquerra de l’Ebre when asked by La Vanguardia.

Sediment also flows down the river, one of the great deficits of the Ebro delta, which is losing ground to the rise in sea level. Part of the sediments are retained in large reservoirs, a fundamental unresolved problem. The climate emergency, with storms such as Gloria (2020) or Filomena (2021), shows the fragility of the entire Ebrense wetland.

“There is not enough water and we have a serious problem with regression, the lands are increasingly salty and this requires fresh water. The scenario is different from that of 2008 due to climate change, very cruel; “We had never seen it before,” warns Antoni Almudever, president of the General Community of Regants of the Canal de la Dreta de l’Ebre.

The irrigators of the two large canals to the right and left of the Ebro are now guaranteed the concession of water, key to the subsistence of rice. The water concession depends on the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE), direct responsibility of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition. In the next rice campaign, which starts in spring, the fields will be able to be flooded and maintain the supply of 100% irrigation water until the end of summer.

The reality was very different in the spring of 2023, when the CHE left the irrigators of the Ebro delta with only half of the water in the concession. The Mequinenza reservoir fell to 35% of reserves due to the drought. The unprecedented situation put rice growers in check, who on average lost 30% of their crops, a hard blow for one of the most solid economic sectors in this territory.

“We come from restrictions that only affected irrigators, no one else,” they remember from the Comunitat de Regants de l’Esquerra. “This summer’s restrictions have cost a lot of money. We only have this to survive. There is a lot of water deficit within the Ebro basin,” adds Almudever, at the head of a community that irrigates 14,000 hectares and defends the interests of 2,000 irrigators. “We ran out of irrigation water and the industry and tourism of Tarragona passed us by, without restrictions and without suffering. What a paradox, right? And without compensation for our territory,” adds Almudever.

Joan Alginet (ERC), president of the Consorci d’Aigües de Tarragona (CAT), the public interest entity that manages the mini-transfer, maintains that there is no surplus of water, as the supporters of the interconnection argue. “We do not have any excess water, all the water we have is available to the members of the consortium, it has assignees: the town councils (69) and the industries (25). We don’t have a catchall with excess water where someone can take it,” reasons Alginet, councilor in Deltebre (Baix Ebre), in favor of reducing Tarragona’s current dependence on the Ebro River and firm opponent of interconnection.

The CAT has just presented its annual balance, and in 2023 it consumed 77.7 of the 94.7 hm³ of the annual mini-transfer concession. 18% of the water in the concession was not used, thanks in part to the increase in the use of regenerated water in the petrochemical industry (5.9 hm³). “The water that is not consumed is not collected from the river,” highlights Alginet (CAT). It is a flow that is allowed to flow downstream, to the mouth, which favors the ecological flow, one of the great workhorses of the Platform in Defense of the Ebre (PDE).

When in 2008 the Generalitat government agreed to the interconnection on an exceptional basis to respond to the emergency, it was done based on the flow of water from the Ebro not used by the mini-transfer. The CAT consumes on average each year around 2.4 cubic meters (m³) of water per second of the maximum of 4 m³/s that allows the collection regulated by the state mini-transfer law (1981). “The water from the mini-transfer is collected from the canals, not from the river,” recalls Alginet. A transcendent nuance. The two irrigation communities of the Ebro share an annual compensation of four million euros, paid by the CAT, to transfer the water from the mini-transfer to Tarragona for 35 years. If now we wanted to send water outside the province of Tarragona, by boat or pipeline, the central government would have to approve it exceptionally as it did in 2008 because the mini-transfer law does not allow it.

When the interconnection was approved in the previous drought, the General Community of Regants of the Canal de la Dreta de l’Ebre was from the beginning willing to negotiate with the Generalitat and the central Government the sending of the part of the water not used by the mini transfer to Barcelona. It was key.

The Comunitat de Regants de l’Esquerra de l’Ebre, with a progressive tradition, ended up opposing the interconnection in 2008. Globally, the irrigators of the entire Ebro basin, with enormous weight, agreed to transfer part of the Ebro water to Barcelona in the face of the emergency: 2 m³/s.

The two irrigation communities are now speaking out against the interconnection, without hesitation. The scenario is different.

“No one comes to help us, they only remember us when there is no water,” highlights Almudever, from the right-wing irrigation community. The Terres de l’Ebre have historically seen large public and private investments almost always pass them by. At the same time, the water of the Ebro River, its great heritage, was not capable of becoming its own engine of development.

On the other hand, the water from the Ebro through the mini-transfer to Tarragona, launched in 1989, has served to generate wealth and employment 80 kilometers away. Two powerful and influential sectors have benefited from the mini-transfer: tourism and petrochemicals, which helped pay for the mini-transfer works. They both breathe a sigh of relief to see that they have guaranteed supply, without restrictions.

In the Terres de l’Ebre there is a widespread conviction that the current territorial imbalance with respect to the northern regions of Catalonia will grow even more. “We oppose the interconnection not only because it would not solve the water deficit in the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona, ??but under a misunderstood concept of solidarity, it would further accentuate the existing territorial imbalance,” maintains the Comunitat de Regants de l’Esquerra. “Insolidarity is extracting natural resources from a territory, already in deficit, to manufacture them in another territory, favoring its development and aggravating the historical territorial imbalance,” they add.

The interconnection promoted by the tripartite Government, with President José Montilla (PSC) at the helm, was approved with the commitment that it would only be to respond to emergency situations. A connection that was said to be two-way, that is, if there was a lack of water in Tarragona and Terres de l’Ebre, it could be used to send water from the Ter-Llobregat system to the south of Catalonia.

The conviction now is that interconnection, if it were to become a reality, would not only be for drought situations. “Once you have opened the pipeline, everything would go to Barcelona and you would be the last,” warns Almudever, of the irrigators.

The great fear is that the Ebro water would serve to facilitate, without an expiration date, the unstoppable development of the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona, ??especially the residential and tourist sectors. “The Ebro River is not the solution to solve the problem of uncontrolled growth that the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona has,” says Susana Abella, one of the souls of the Platform in Defense of the Ebre.