Andalusia already has the IV Drought Decree, lines of action to follow to alleviate the extreme drought suffered by the region and which are endowed with 217 million euros in order to carry out hydraulic works in those parts of the region. where necessary, rely on desalination plants and regenerated water for use in the countryside, as well as a package of aid to the agricultural sector. This was announced today by the spokesperson for the Andalusian Executive, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, and the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development, Carmen Crespo, after the Government Council held today.
The Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy has also taken the opportunity to criticize that the Government of Spain, led by the socialist Pedro Sánchez, does not have a problem as relevant as drought on its agenda, since he has pointed out that The policies that Andalusia is now developing in this matter will be the guide for the rest of the country’s communities in the not too distant future, he commented.
Furthermore, Fernández-Pacheco has announced that the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, will once again ask the European Union for more resources for the area most affected by the lack of rainfall and to alleviate the consequences that this situation is having in the main sectors. economic of the region.
This new trip to Brussels has been criticized by the main opposition party, led by Juan Espadas, general secretary of the PSOE-A, who has insisted that when the head of San Telmo “asks for money, he is not able to justify why.” does not execute the European funds transferred to it” by the EU. The problem is not about money, he has said, but about “management capacity.”
For its part, the far-right party, VOX, has supported this decree of urgent measures, although Antonio Sevilla, deputy of the party’s parliamentary group, has warned that PP and PSOE are “culprit that we are thirsty again.” ”.
The objective is not to lose a drop of water, to help those who are having the worst time in this situation and to make use of reclaimed water. To this end, water work is “a cornerstone” for this popular Government, said Crespo, who commented that since Moreno arrived in San Telmo, 1,097 works have been carried out for amounts of 1,500 million euros and, in addition, Approved three drought decrees with 300 million investment, the first two being almost 90% complete and working on the third. Regarding the fourth decree, he highlighted that it is endowed with 217.8 million euros, which raises the total investment amount of the four decrees above 500 million euros. All of this, aimed at overcoming this “meta-drought”, something which was already experienced in 1995.
This new decree law includes a series of immediate and priority actions that will be concluded next summer and opens a new avenue of collaboration, endowed with 40 million euros, with the smallest municipalities through agreements with the provincial councils to alleviate leaks. existing on the network. Likewise, it also focuses on regenerated water to guarantee supply to the productive sectors. All of this will provide the community with 81 hm3 of new water through the recovery of boreholes, desalination and an increase in regenerated water. Thus, it includes the immediate start of works in the Malaga regions of Axarquía, Guadalhorce and the Costa del Sol, Campo de Gibraltar, Levante de Almería, Guadalete and Barbate in Cádiz and Béznar and Rules in Granada.
On the other hand, in terms of medium-term works, those to help needy areas outside the hydrographic basins of regional jurisdiction are established, to help the municipalities of Seville, Jaén and Córdoba. The increase in desalination will also be key, with the expansion of the desalination plant on the Costa del Sol, in Marbella (Málaga), an improvement that will allow it to reach 20 hm3 and is complemented by the one already underway under the III Decree of Drought, in which its capacity was doubled from 6 to 12 hm3.
Likewise, the commitment to the circular economy already underway in numerous points is reinforced with the construction of new tertiary services in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), Bajo Guadalhorce, Antequera and Gualdahorce (Málaga) and Motril (Granada), with which 39 hm3 will be put into circulation for the productive sectors and industry, with the agricultural sector being preferred.
The decree includes works in the ports of Algeciras, Cádiz and Carboneras, in Almería, to allow the arrival of ships with water that would be transferred to a water treatment plant to incorporate it into the population’s supply.
Helping irrigators and farmers with new water connections to regenerated ones and helping them financially, through direct aid or tax exemptions, are another of the axes of this decree.
Here the specific line stands out, worth 50 million euros, for the recovery of the productive potential for the crops most affected by the drought, while for livestock the exception for conventional feeding of organic livestock is maintained due to the drought situation. .
Finally, the Andalusian Government will undertake the implementation of the connections to the regenerated waters in the irrigable areas of the left bank of the Bajo Guadalete-Northwest Coast, Guadalhorce, Guaro, the head of the Guadalhorce in Antequera, Motril-Salobreña and areas of the Levante of Almería (Vera, Mojácar and Cuevas del Almanzora). “I think it is a very complete decree with which we are reaching the limit of our possibilities to protect citizens and the productive sectors,” said Crespo, who has expressed his confidence that “the other administrations are up to the task.” of circumstances that are not flattering”.
Finally, he asked citizens to “be very alert, that they have to take care of water because this is not only a matter of the public administration, but also of them; water is finite and in a dry land like Andalusia, affected by climate change, we must all look at that necessary common social good.
Juan Espadas, leader of the PSOE of Andalusia, expressed today, after the approval of the new decree, that the Board already declared in 2020 “emergency works that remain unfinished”, and Moreno “practically has no names left to complete.” that the problem is not even the budget”, because “the Board has money”, “or the way to call it”, but rather that “the difficulty is that what we have in the drawer is practically almost 60% of the budgets of water still unexecuted”, the equivalent of “1,200 million euros”, according to what he warned.
Thus, Espadas has stressed that “there are already five million Andalusians who have difficulties in supplying water for human consumption”, and in this regard he has criticized the “inability” of the president of the Board to “have planned and taken advantage” of the five years that He has already been governing in Andalusia “so that we would not reach the situations of supply difficulties” that we are currently experiencing. “There has been a lack of foresight, the ability to execute works and, clearly, to do everything on his part to exercise the powers he has.” “He has spent too much time confronting the Government of Spain and very little time responding to his own powers in the Andalusian hydrographic basins over which he has “full powers.”
On the other hand, the socialist has criticized Moreno’s trip to Brussels, and has described it as “a flight forward to seek even more budget in the European Union, saying that, indeed and as is real, we have a very serious drought problem.” and that probably with more money he could solve it”, and in this regard he has warned that the president of the Board “has a credibility problem” in the community capital, because they see him there “and remember Doñana”, that ” A few months ago I wanted to convince Brussels that it was possible to expand irrigation in Doñana” and that “this had no impact on the scarcity of water resources in that ecosystem.”
For his part, the deputy of the Vox parliamentary group in the Parliament of Andalusia, Antonio Sevilla, has shown support for the fourth decree of urgent measures in response to the drought situation in Andalusia and has assured that “Vox will always vote in favor of any measure that be good for Andalusia and, especially, for the Andalusian primary sector”, but he has warned that “we will not stop pointing out PP and PSOE, who are responsible for making us thirsty again.” “Tomorrow it starts to rain abundantly and sufficiently, and I assure you that the same thing as always will happen, that the popular and socialists will forget about the water works that are now being thrown in their faces and that are needed so that when another period of drought arrives it will not find ourselves again in the same situation of water scarcity as now,” he warned.
At this point, the Seville parliamentarian has disfigured the “embarrassing water war waged by PP and PSOE, which ends up being paid by the usual parties, those who are least to blame, the Andalusians.”
