The bill that the PP and Vox are processing in the Andalusian Parliament to regularize illegal irrigation in the area of ​​Doñana has caused enormous controversy. It has provoked the rejection of the scientific community. It has irritated the central government. And it has given rise to three reprimands and appeals from the European Commission.
The proposed law of PP and Vox in Andalusia, in its current formulation, is a “flagrant violation” of the 2021 EU Court ruling that forced Spain to end the over-extraction of water and take concrete measures against illegal wells . This is what the European Commission has been repeating.
If the law prospers, the European Commission would initiate a new infringement procedure that would lead to a million-dollar fine against Spain. And that is what the central government wants to avoid at all costs.
The Andalusian Parliament approved processing the bill of PP and Vox on the regulation of irrigated areas of five municipalities located north of the Doñana Forest Crown, members of the so-called County of Huelva (Almonte, Bonares, Lucena del Puerto, Moguer and Rociana). The claim announced by PP and Vox is to “order” the situation of some 750 hectares and 650 farms (although no specific figures have been officially given) that were left out of the Special Plan for the Doñana Forest Crown. This is an agreement reached in 2014 between the administrations to legalize only irrigation prior to the year 2004. A similar initiative, undertaken at the time with PP and C’s, tried to regularize some 1,500 hectares; but it declined when regional elections were called.
WWF estimates that about 1,000 illegal wells gravitate over the Doñana aquifer, responsible for the overexploitation of these water reserves. These wells capture the water, which is stored in rafts and used to irrigate red fruits, strawberries and strawberries. The Guadalquivir Confederation opens files but has shown itself incapable of stopping this bleeding.
Scientists have been warning that the national park is in “critical condition” and that “more than half of its lagoons have disappeared.” This degradation is attributed to factors such as annual rainfall variability and climate change, but also to the increase in cultivated areas (over-extraction of water), the growth of tourist activity (Matalascañas urbanization) or the operation of the golf course, all which puts great pressure on Doñana, a space that is boxed in between all these fences. “Swimming pools are filled by emptying a world heritage site of water,” says Juan Carlos del Olmo, WWF’s general secretary, graphically. Birds, for example, suffer this degradation first, according to studies by the CSIC and Ecologistas en Acción.
Irrigation in the forest crown went from 2,162 hectares in 2004 to 3,543 ha in 2014, which represents an increase of more than 30% in just ten years. Today the area occupied today is even greater.
The PP and Vox present the law as a territorial arrangement and point out that its purpose is to preserve “the interests of tens of thousands of people in the province of Huelva, small farmers who, for decades, have earned their family’s livelihood with these exploitations”, for which they speak of “historical rights”
A serious shortcoming of this initiative is that it is not accompanied by the mandatory report from the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (responsible for water planning). The Board seeks to pave the way to regularize illegal wells but counting on a resource (water) belonging to a transfer that is not within its competence. The proposal lacks “technical and scientific information†on water availability.
The PP and Vox say that the water would come from the planned water transfer from the hydrographic demarcation of the Tinto, Odiel and Piedras rivers to the Guadalquivir demarcation (state work). The PP insists that its initiative does not affect Doñana or its aquifer, and that the crops are 30 kilometers from the natural space. However, the reality is that the aquifer is a geophysical unit that crosses areas of the environment and the natural space itself. The Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno, has defended this solution and has demanded that the Sánchez government “fulfill” its commitments and carry out the works for the transfer of the Tinto-Odiel-Piedras. The president of the Guadalquivir Confederation, JoaquÃn Páez, has been reiterating that the water from this transfer would be for supply and legal irrigation, and should not serve to legitimize illegal irrigation.
The transfer planned by the Guadalquivir Confederation from the Tinto-Odiel-Piedras to Doñana would consist of a transfer of 5 hm3 for supply and 15 hm3 for irrigation, but there is no date for completion. The water, as planned, should be used to provide flows to farms that already have legal groundwater concessions, since what it is about is that these contributed flows replace the resources that are now legally extracted from the subsoil, so as to alleviate the pressure on Doñana.
No. The Junta de AndalucÃa has never proposed or suggested a modification to the Guadalquivir hydrological plan in order to incorporate a larger irrigated area. Hydrological planning (recently approved after a long participatory process) establishes that it cannot enable even one more square meter of irrigable land.
The parliamentary initiative of PP and Vox has been described as confusing. WWF complains that the actual number of hectares that would be legalized has not been reported. For his part, Mayor Moguer, among others, have complained that the Board has not communicated to the municipalities the land and the people who would be affected by the application of the law, so they are unaware of what this proposal was retranslated into. in concrete terms.
The Government and environmental organizations maintain that in order to comply with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU (which condemned Spain for mismanaging water and its impact on the natural ecosystems of Doñana), it is necessary to assume the commitments of the Plan of the Forest Crown.
The approval of the aforementioned Plan was the result of years of work among all the affected sectors. The pact was signed while Susana DÃaz was in the Andalusian presidency and Mariano Rajoy in the Spanish government. The Socialists accuse the Junta of “unilaterally imposing a plan” and the spokesmen for the Andalusian government accuse the Government of not bringing together the promised bilateral commission.
Given the large volume of illegal irrigation and the socio-political problem generated, many experts maintain that the solution cannot be to assume fait accompli but rather that the various administrations collaborate and provide solutions with their respective powers, given that Doñana has seen its ” load capacity†and that a response with concrete measures and solutions must be given to the European Commission.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition promotes an investment estimated at 350 million euros in water: 150 million in surface water supplies that replace groundwater or improve urban supply systems, and another 150 million for sanitation and purification, and improves the conditions of the water that feeds Doñana, among other items.
And the Board should exercise its powers in matters of agriculture and industry in this line. Given that the carrying capacity of these ecosystems has been exceeded, many experts call for diversifying the economy with an industrial activity for the transformation of agricultural products, instead of focusing everything on the overexploitation of irrigation. There is also the risk that the European markets promote campaigns against the unsustainable strawberries from Huelva and pay just for sinners, since there are also farmers who act legally.
The director of the Doñana-CSIC Biological Station, Eloy Revilla, has pointed out that “the current exploitation of the aquifer is not sustainable”, since “more resources are being extracted than are regenerated annually through precipitation recharge, which is variable and decreasing, so this natural resource is being depleted”. He maintains that the “uncontrolled” proliferation of irrigated crops “without the corresponding authorizations” has been “caused by a clear governance failure on the part of the competent administrations.” He also believes that there is a “clear lack of political will” when it comes to solving the problem. “This executive inaction is what has led us to the unsustainable critical point in which Doñana finds itself,” he assured.
According to the director of the Doñana Biological Station, the need to provide water to the farms that appear in the proposed law “makes the urgent solution of the problem even more difficult.”
Spain was condemned by the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to comply with its obligations derived from the Water Framework Directives and the Habitat Directive. Specifically, in the ruling (June 2021) it was condemned for the excessive and legal extractions of water for crops and for “not having foreseen any measure to avoid the alteration caused” by these extractions on priority habitats.
The General Directorate for the Environment of the European Commission, as soon as it learned of the parliamentary proposal, sent a letter to Spain in which it stated that “if the processing of this proposal succeeds in the terms that have been announced, it would be producing a flagrant violation of the provisions of the judgment of the Court of Justice†of Luxembourg. If it does not remedy, the European Commission threatens to launch another procedure that could culminate in a fine for Spain.
On March 13, community spokesman Tim McPhien stated: “If necessary, the European Commission will have the possibility of adopting new measures to ensure that Spain complies with the judgment of the Court of Justice on Doñana.” Brussels wielded this threat, recalling that there is “solid” scientific and technical evidence on the “adverse effects” of the overexploitation of its groundwater. “If necessary, the European Commission will have the possibility of adopting new measures to ensure that Spain complies with the judgment of the Court of Justice on Doñana,” according to community spokesman Tim McPhie.
The European Commission has warned (this April 20) Spain again, and now in a more solemn manner, that it will make every effort in its power to ensure that the Spanish authorities comply with the June 2021 ruling. The Commission have warned that, if approved in the terms announced, this legislative proposal (from PP and Vox) could contravene applicable community environmental legislation”, reiterated the European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, in response to a question posed by the Socialist group in the European Parliament. “In that case, the Commission would consider, as Guardian of the Treaties, the use of all means available under the Treaties to ensure that the Kingdom of Spain effectively complies with the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU.” The question was formulated by the socialist deputies César Luena and Javi López.
Manuel Delgado, spokesman for the Puerta Doñana Farmers’ Association, explained to La Vanguardia that the proposal is “as outrageous as a castle.” “Amnesty is being awarded to farmers who have been cultivating illegally for 10 and 15 years.” On the other hand, Julio DÃaz, spokesman for the Platform in Defense of County Irrigation, is in favor of the proposal that “has been agreed to the last comma” with them. DÃaz argues that what they want is to “recover the land so that, when there is water on the surface, it can be cultivatedâ€, “we do not want to irrigate with the aquifers, we will wait for the water from the transfer to arriveâ€, he assures.
The PP initiative, according to various observers, has an electoral purpose, since it seeks to create the conditions to wrest the mayoralties from the PSOE councils in Huelva County. Before the next elections, it is at stake to win the Diputación de Huelva, now in the hands of the PSOE. Obtaining this position allows the popular to have greater influence in public companies and resources. However, this local battle has jumped into the state arena, and it remains to be seen if it can generate misunderstanding among PP voters at the state level. These may not understand that the risk of a sanction against Spain is incurred or that the image of a national and international icon such as Doñana is endangered.
The Andalusian president has been convinced that his proposal should serve to resolve the pending problem of illegal women farmers. The confrontation has forced the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to intervene, who has expressed his support for the Board in his initiatives to solve the “problems” of the affected families who seek irrigation regularization. Moreno-Bonilla invokes that “interference” is taking place in Andalusia. “I hope that Mr. Moreno Bonilla is seeing that there are no ghosts here, but that what there is is a very clear space, understood very well by everyone. You don’t have to say things that are lies. The Commission knows exactly what we are talking about; They monitor us constantly. It is not necessary for Moreno Bonilla to go with stories â€, declares the Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera in statements collected by this newspaper.
