The Masdenverge City Council (in the Montsià region, Tarragona) and the affected residents of the municipality demand that the channel of the Galera ravine be lowered to mitigate the damage caused by the downpours.
The downpour that punished the small municipality two weeks ago has left damage worth one million euros to the road network, according to the calculations of the council, which will request the declaration of a catastrophic area.
Beyond the damage, they have confirmed that the force of the water dragged enormous amounts of gravel and sediment, considerably raising the level of the channel.
The mayor, René Gonel, has asked the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) in writing to fix the ravine to avoid a new episode, but the entity is not clear about it.
Just when almost 23 years have passed since a ravine that literally erased the bridge that crosses the Galera ravine and left serious damage to roads, homes and private properties, the residents of Masdenverge have verified that these episodes, then considered extraordinary, occur one after the other. more and more frequently. It also happened, with less intensity, in 2018, 2021 with Gloria and, now, it has been repeated.
For many affected, the overflow of the Galera ravine two weeks ago had more destructive consequences than the one more than two decades ago.
Many roads and ravine passes have disappeared, the water broke walls and penetrated gardens, orchards and homes.
The Foia natural space has been devastated by the violent passage of water and the ravine will be barely a meter away from jumping over the rebuilt T-350 highway bridge. Some neighbors were cut off and isolated for one or two days.
The municipal government, like other affected neighboring municipalities in the area, has already announced that it will request the declaration of an area affected by an emergency from the Spanish government.
Meanwhile, machines and trucks – with the financial support of the Tarragona Provincial Council – have been working for days to try to restore, mainly, the roads and ravine passes that allow access to agricultural operations, farms and homes.
However, the feared recurrence of new floods in a context of worsening effects of climate change generates fear of the possibility of another imminent new episode.
With just under 15 square kilometers in area, the Galera ravine crosses its municipal area from south to north. “The particularity we have is that water comes down from the Solsó and Galera ravines: the two come together in our area and everything multiplies,” says the mayor.
The added problem, according to Gonel, is that this new ravine, beyond dragging plant remains and garbage, has transformed the structure of the channel and, due to the accumulation of gravel and dragged sediments, it has risen noticeably. In some points, in fact, it is already at the same level as the enabled ravine passes.
“We have to fix the ravine because if we spend money on roads, there will be new overflows and the same thing will happen. How? Sinking it more, removing intensive vegetation and allowing it to have a passage through there when it goes down,” he said.
The request has already been sent in writing to the ACA and a meeting is scheduled in the coming days to address the issue. The municipal government proposes that one of the town’s two aggregate extraction plants, located right next to the ravine, be responsible for removing these materials and marketing them with the corresponding permits.
The Generalitat body announced shortly after the episode two weeks ago the investment of 120,000 euros in actions to clean up plant remains and redistribute gravel in the channels of the Montsià ravines, including La Galera. In the case of the Masdenverge section, it is planned to soften the consolidated deposits with the growth of vegetation on top.
But the ACA is not clear about sinking the channel, a project that “would have to be analyzed in depth if it is viable”, given that “it could affect the dynamics of the ravine, cause harm to third parties and entail environmental damage.” Sources from the entity have indicated that town councils can benefit from the aid provided for structural actions to protect and defend against floods, as long as they previously have a drafted project.
They also remember that the extraction of aggregates, “except in very specific cases”, is discouraged because it could affect neighboring farms and alter river dynamics. They add that this is a complex procedure that must ultimately be resolved by the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE) as the competent administration.
The mayor insists that simply redistributing the gravel on the sides of the channel will not be “effective enough for the water that will flow.”
“Our bet is to deepen the ravine three or four meters so that it absorbs a greater amount of water and does not cause as much damage as now. The ravine is becoming wider and shallower,” replies Gonel, who fears that new episodes will lead to the water inside the urban area.
It is not a situation at all unknown to neighbors and administrations that a part of the town is in the middle of a flood zone due to the passage of the Galera ravine.
On October 23, 2000, the flooding of the ravine, in addition to bursting the bridge, flooded the interior of farms, houses and also municipal facilities, including the town’s primary school.
Its transfer to a safer location, as claimed by the Generalitat itself, has remained pending since then. Practically no one feels like talking about going backwards or expropriating.
Jesús Farnós still remembers that episode as well. It is not the first time, as happened this past September 3, that he and his family have had to leave in a hurry due to the sudden growth in the level of the ravine. The water has destroyed doors, fences, furniture and equipment in the house that they now have just a few meters from the river. As an affected neighbor, he supports the mayor’s demand to sink the ravine.
“We see that it is rising every time, it carries a lot of sediment and a lot of gravel. It has been getting wider for years, we considered 25 or 30 meters of land lost because when it goes down it takes what it wants,” he noted.
He estimates that in a few decades it has lost half of its depth. “This, added to actions from a long time ago modifying the steps of the ravine, through which the water used to pass, bounces back here. I have the property here because I have inherited it and we will do the cleaning that is necessary. But we find ourselves helpless,” he concludes.
And yet, it assumes that the problem is very difficult to solve in the current context of accelerated climate change. “Even if they repair it, I’m sure I’ll have problems in a short time, probably in the coming years,” he closes.
