Environmental NGOs and others, as well as numerous academics, scientists, unions and political parties are trying to stop this project by blocking the funding from the European Union. Furthermore the Spanish hydrological plan will break the new European Water Framework Directive, which all EU member states and candidate countries are now required to implement, stated an expert of the WWF European Water Policy.
The Spanish Hydrologoical Plan in detail
The NHP is a legislative text elaborated by the Spanish Ministry of Environment. It includes a list of "investments" for the whole of the Spanish territory (a total of 863 water infrastructure and other works), and a series of annexes containing different supporting documents, such as an analysis of the hydraulic systems, the identification and allocation of resources in shared aquifers, an economic analysis of the planned interventions.
The central issue of the NHP is the regulation of water resources by transfer from catchments that have called water "in excess" to catchments with "water deficit". In this context, the NHP points out that water transfers are only proposed for cases where it is necessary to ensure urban water supply and to provide water to existing irrigation infrastructures.
The Plan establishes the creation of a new water transfer of 1,050 hm3 per year from the Ebro river to the following areas:
Catalonia (190 hm3),
Comunidad Valenciana (315 hm3),
Murcia (450 hm3) and
Almería (95 hm3).
190 hm3 will be used for supplying fresh water to the urban area of Barcelona. The remaining transferred volumes are reserved for the agricultural areas that have "irrigation rights" or to improve the ecological quality of water ecosystems subject to severe degradation in the Southwest of Spain.
The plan includes a major expenditure of 4,207 million € for the Ebro water transfer in the next eight or ten years and other investments amounting to 8,869 million € for a number of hydraulic works (dam construction and improvement of irrigation infrastructures ), to be carried out during an 8-year period. Other sums are being reserved for desalination, water treatment and supply (5,420 million €), water quality control (1,260 million €), flood prevention and reforestation (3,294 million €). The Government foresees that one third of the global cost (23,050 million €) of the NHP will be paid by the European Union.
More about the Ebro Delta
The Ebro Delta is the largest stretch of the Ebro Delta Natural Park wetland in Catalonia (Tarragona - North-East Spain). It covers an area of 320 km2 and is most important for it aquatic environment in the Western Mediterranean. The Park is the second largest in Spain after the Doñana National Park. Despite the key part it plays in the biological field, much of the delta is taken up with human settlements and it is of a considerable importance in agricultural terms.
More about the Rhone river
The Rhone river is 813 km long. It flows from central France into the Mediterranean Sea. With its impetuous Alpine tributaries (Isère,Drôme, Durance and others), the Rhone has the largest water flow of all French rivers. (Source: ERN, February, 2002)
Information & Contact:
The European Rivers Network (ERN)
c/o SOS Loire Vivante
8 Rue crozatier
F-43000 Le Puy
Southern France
Tel. +33 471 02 08 14
Fax +33 471 02 60 99
