Stephen Burgen
A £13 billion plan
to divert water across Spain has been slammed as a
costly scheme to benefit not dry land but water
companies. And the British would have to help pay for it
The view from the
corner of the Calle Luis Buñuel is not what you'd
expect from a street named in honour of the surrealist
film maker. In the foreground is the broad, green valley
of the River Aragon, and beyond rise the wild white
peaks of the Pyrenees. But Buñuel was from Aragon, so
he is celebrated here in Artieda, a village of 100
souls, whose serene and majestic vistas do not hint at
the monstrosity that lies just a few miles downstream,
or suggest the sense of doom that hangs over this
tranquil place.
Alfredo Solano was made
here. To say he was born and lives here wouldn't convey
the degree to which he is a part of it, and it of him.
With three neighbours he has formed a co-operative; they
work the land and keep pigs. The business is going well,
but that's not the point: it's not so much his
livelihood that he's worried about; it's his identity,
which is wrapped up in this valley.
'What is humiliating,'
he says with eloquence, 'is this neocolonialism that
will destroy everything about my life and my traditions,
and will drive me and my family and my neighbours out of
this valley, just so that someone - probably someone
from another country - can have a second home miles away
on the coast.'
In Tortosa, 250 miles
away, where the River Ebro flows into the Mediterranean,
Manolo Tomas says, with an ironic smile: 'There are laws
that protect the birds and plants to be found here in
the delta, but none that protect the people.'
For Solano and Tomas
the issue is the same: water. Except that, as they
vehemently point out, it's not about water, it's about
money.
The idea of diverting
water from one place that has it to another that hasn't
is as old as agriculture itself. But a scheme to build
118 dams and 14 canals, one of them 434 miles long, to
move water from parts of the country that have an 'excess'
to parts that suffer from a 'shortage' might have made
the pharaohs gulp. Even China would struggle to dig that
much dirt and mix that much concrete in eight years. But
this is what the Spanish government proposes in the Plan
Hidrologico Nacional (National Water Plan).
The plan is presented
by the government as Spain's great opportunity, without
specifying for what, except to say that it will solve
all the nation's water problems - at a cost, of course,
currently estimated at £13 billion. And that's before
anyone has so much as picked up a spade. All dam-building
schemes hitherto have gone way over budget and there's
no reason to think that this, the most grandiose of all,
won't as well. Naturally, the taxpayer will pick up the
tab; and not just the Spanish taxpayer, because a third
of the cost is expected to be funded by Europe. So the
money will come out of British pockets too.
Even if it were true
that the water will go to irrigate the parched lands of
the southeast, the type of agriculture prevalent there
is already of the kind geared towards the lunacy of the
common agricultural policy, where agribusiness -
exploiting illegal immigrant labour - grows
fast-turnover cash crops that, because of
overproduction, Brussels pays it to destroy.If the
government is a little vague about what the plan is for,
then its opponents - who are many and vociferous - are
more succinct
It is an opportunity to
line the pockets of the government's friends in big
business, they say, especially those in construction and
power generation. 'The government has linked agua and
obras, water and construction, in people's minds,' says
Tomas, the spokesman for the Platform in Defence of the
Ebro. 'They never talk about the one without the other.
But this plan isn't about water, it's about
construction. This is public money, European money,
being put into the pockets of big business in Spain.'
Pedro Arrojo, an
economic analyst at Zaragoza university, agrees. 'This
is a plan for concrete,' he says. 'It will only benefit
big construction and hydroelectric companies, and
speculative builders who are anticipating juicy deals on
the coast.'
Spain already has 1,200
large dams - it is fourth in the world dam-building
league after China, India and the United States. A map
of Spain suggests that it's a country of many large
lakes, but those jagged blue patches are all dam waters.
At the end of the 1950s, 20 years after the end of the
civil war, 20 years known as the 'years of hunger', dams
were presented as the saviours of the nation, providing
electricity, irrigation and prosperity. Dams sprung up
everywhere - funded by the state but built by private
enterprise - until there wasn't a river in the Pyrenees
that didn't have a dam on it.
But the most dammed
river of all is the Ebro, so it is both the key to the
plan and the focus of opposition. The Ebro rises in the
north near Santander and winds southeast through Rioja
and Zaragoza, until it empties into the sea in the
weirdly beautiful Catalan region of the Ebro delta. It
is a stately river and, except where its progress is
interrupted by dams, there is something about it that
lifts the spirits. In a country with few great rivers,
it is much loved, and in Aragon it is the object of an
almost mystical reverence. It is also in danger and,
after the driest winter in 10 years, has sunk to its
lowest recorded level.
The genesis of the
national water plan was unusual, to say the least. It
was first proposed in 1993 under the Socialist
government of Felipe Gonzalez. His water minister, Josep
Borrell, came up with the concept - or slogan - of 'dry
Spain' and 'wet Spain' and a scheme for the latter to
irrigate the former. The proposals were apparently made
without research into supply and demand or risks to the
environment, and seem to have appeared out of thin air,
or at least off the top of the minister's head - his
background is in telecommunications and the treasury,
not water or the environment. The plan immediately met
opposition because it infringed long-held water rights,
and by the time the Socialists fell in 1996, Borrell had
distanced himself from it.
It was soon revived by
the incoming Popular party's water minister, Benigno
Blanco. Blanco, who is now minister for infrastructure,
was at the time an adviser to Iberdrola, Spain's main
generator of hydroelectricity and an enterprise that
clearly maintains an interest in both rivers and
dam-building. In spite of this apparent conflict of
interest, the minister was allowed to present his plan,
again with little prior research. He now, claims the
prosecution, faces eight years in jail on charges that,
in 1996, when he was still the water minister, he
falsified documents and concealed evidence that showed
that the construction of a dam at Santaliestra in Aragon
could lead to a human catastrophe, owing to geological
problems. The charges also refer to Blanco's 'lack of
objectivity' (his connections with Iberdrola).
For a proposal of such
enormous social and financial implications, the National
Water Plan act is surprisingly short: 15 pages of
preamble and 12 pages listing dams and other works to be
carried out, with no explanation of their purpose. The
plan envisages an absolute rise in demand and has
relatively little to say about recycling waste water,
desalinating sea water or using underground resources.
It is, say critics, 'a 19th-century solution to a
21st-century problem'. The respected economist Josep
Verges says it is unsustainable, uncompetitive and
better suited to a communist regime than modern Europe.
Blanco also said the
existing legislation needed to be reformed to allow for
water 'franchises'. Privatisation, in other words, from
which the hydro companies - the only people in a
position to control significant quantities of water -
would be the main beneficiaries. Under the new law, they
could sell the electricity, then the water from which it
is generated. (Up to now, Spanish water has never been
anyone's property.) It allows for the establishment of
'state water companies' to attract private investment.
This is disingenuous: the only reason a private investor
would put money into a state-run business is that they
expect a return, and the only means of getting that
return is by selling the water. But the government
cannot say it is privatising water, as water is a highly
emotive issue.
At the heart of the
proposal is the plan to divert water from the Ebro via
two canals, one running north to Barcelona and the other
south to Valencia, Murcia and Almeria. Both would
originate near Tortosa, at the mouth of the Ebro. Of the
1,050 cubic hectometres of water that would be extracted
per year - equal to 70 litres per Spaniard per day -
about one fifth would go to Catalunya, one third to
Valencia, nearly half to Murcia and the remainder to
Almeria.
However, the Ebro is in
full flow for only a few months of the year, and in
summer, when demand is highest, there would be
insufficient water to fill the canals. This is why
Solano is so depressed and angry. The only way the
scheme can work is if water is warehoused, as he puts
it, to boost the river's summer flow. And the only place
to warehouse water is in the Pyrenees, in his valley.
What you can't see from
his village is the dam a few miles down river at Yesa.
Built in 1959, Yesa is immense and, like all dams, there
is something sinister about it and the waters it holds
back. Uglier still is the muddy moonscape it has made of
a long stretch of valley that is only submerged a few
months of the year. If the plan goes ahead to extend the
Yesa dam upwards by 30 metres, then this is what
Solano's village will overlook - a vast artificial lake
for a few months of the year and soggy, brown scrubland
for the rest.
Three other villages,
home to about 1,500 people, will disappear altogether,
along with two Romanesque churches, an Iron Age
necropolis and up to 18 miles of the ancient pilgrim
route to Santiago de Compostela, which has been declared
a World Heritage Site by Unesco. In all, 22 miles of the
valley will be lost to flood waters. Aragon has already
lost around 300 villages to dams.
'Imagine,' Solano says,
as we cross the River Aragon by his village, 'if this
goes ahead, this bridge will be under 20 metres of
water.' In the nearby village of Sigues, which will
disappear under water, the weather vane on the
12th-century church is, presciently, a fish.
Without the reserves of
water held back by the extended Yesa dam, the plan falls
apart, so the government took the precaution of making
what is known as the Water Pact with the government of
Aragon. Yesa would be extended, they were told, so that
more of Aragon could be irrigated. (Jaume Matas, the
environment minister, insists that this remains the
case, and that water from Yesa will not be used to boost
the flow of the Ebro.)
The mastermind behind
the pact was the aptly named Antonio Aragon, the former
head of public works in neighbouring Navarra and
president of the Confederacion Hidrografica del Ebro, an
organisation that dedicates much of its energies to
convincing local politicians of the virtue of building
more dams. The line between vested interest and what the
Spanish call cu–adismo (brother-in-lawism) is
difficult to draw, but it runs right through the
National Water Plan. For example, the province of
Valencia will be a principal beneficiary of the diverted
water. The president of Valencia, Eduardo Zaplana, is a
close friend of Jaume Matas, and their wives have been
friends since childhood.
Now that the people of
Aragon know - after the pact was signed - about the plan
to divert the Ebro, few believe that more than a token
amount of water will go to irrigate Aragon. And as
Solano says, 'Why more irrigation? To grow what?
Brussels is already paying thousands of farmers not to
grow anything.' Asked about the opposition in Aragon,
Matas holds up the pact and says it is the government's
duty to honour it.
Matas did, to his
credit, seek specialist advice from hydrologists and
environmentalists. Altogether, 82 specialists were
consulted and asked to submit reports. However, Matas
decided not to publish their findings - he says this was
at the scientists' behest. Disappointed, and perhaps
suspicious, 62 of those consulted held a meeting in
Madrid to compare notes. All but one had advised the
minister not to go ahead with the plan.
Matas says that they
were overwhelmingly in favour and that the plan was
modified in accordance with their advice. Pressed on why
150 leading scientists had signed a declaration against
the plan, which was presented to the European
parliament, he replies that 'the scientists are
preoccupied with the future, while we are concerned with
the present'.
He says there has been
a public debate, which is true, but only in so far as
the government says that this is what is going to happen
because it's for the best, leaving people to grumble or
to march in the street. Politicians get an easy ride
from the Spanish press: there is no John Humphrys or
Kirsty Wark to give them an on-air grilling. Madrid's
perceived high-handedness was exemplified by the
agriculture minister Miguel Arias Cañete, who said on
television shortly after his party was re-elected in
2000 that the plan would be approved 'por cojones' -
that is, whether people liked it or not. He added that
the legislation would pass through parliament 'like a
military parade'. 'Two things have happened,' said Cañete.
'We have an absolute majority, and we lost in Aragon.'
The plan is being sold
to the Spanish people as an act of solidarity, of the
haves - in terms of water - giving to the have-nots. But
Javier Martinez Gil, professor of hydrology at Zaragoza
university, wants to know who is going thirsty in Spain.
He says nobody, there is no lack of water in Spain, and
points out that while 85% of the nation's water is used
for agriculture, as much as 50% of this is lost through
bad management and antiquated ideas about irrigation. As
for Murcia needing drinking water, who, he asks, drinks
tap water on the coast? Virtually everyone drinks
bottled water, much of which also comes from the
Pyrenees. 'Taking water to the Mediterranean is like
giving drugs to a drug addict,' says Martinez. 'Very
little actually arrives because there are no controls.'
Perhaps anxious that
Brussels will withhold funding on environmental grounds,
the government's claims about the plan have become less
extravagant. Matas now says that there is to be no new
irrigation, that the water transferred from the Ebro is
not to create new farms or housing developments but only
to 'make up the shortfall' in demand in those areas
where there is a problem. How this shortfall is defined
is not clear; Matas merely states that half the water is
for drinking and half for agriculture and industry.
Arrojo says the
government has deliberately manipulated the figures so
it will appear that the water is for irrigation, whereas
the only thing it is likely to end up irrigating is a
golf course. Studies suggest that the price of the
diverted water will be three times the government's
estimates and thus far too costly for agriculture.
Besides, with the water in the private or semi-private
hands of the 'state water companies', they will be able
to charge what they like. The true purpose of the
scheme, opponents claim, is to develop Spain's southeast
coast for tourism, and schemes for a dozen golf courses
in southern Valencia are already in the pipeline. This
is why the governments of Murcia and Valencia welcome
it, although many people from both regions have joined
the campaign to halt the plan. Matas dismisses these
claims, saying that the amount of water consumed by
coastal developments and golf courses is so small as to
be irrelevant.
It is estimated that,
within 20 years, up to 6m non-Spanish Europeans will be
in semi-permanent residence on Spain's Mediterranean
coast. That's a lot of swimming pools. Says Martinez:
'Already, 25% of the rural population of Majorca is
German.' This is not xenophobia so much as a feeling
among many Spaniards that the unfettered urbanisation of
the Mediterranean - often to the detriment of the
interior as well - must stop. To grasp the strength of
feeling this evokes, one has to understand the
Spaniards' passionate attachment to what they call mi
tierra - my land. The industrial revolution and the
internal migration it provoked is only 50 years old in
Spain, and people retain a strong sense of their origins
in rural or semi-rural parts of the country.
With regard to the
National Water Plan, this sense of a violation of la
tierra fuels the protest movement in those areas most
affected by it; but a broader sentiment against a Spain
of second homes and golf courses has brought hundreds of
thousands of people onto the streets of Madrid, Zaragoza
and Barcelona to demand that the plan be scrapped. On
March 10, up to 400,000 people from all over Spain
joined a protest march in Barcelona.
It is a remarkable
movement, uniting farmers and fishermen with scientists
and environmentalists in a campaign whose emotional
force is strengthened by the quality and hard-headedness
of its scientific argument. It also reflects a growing
realisation that, 27 years after Franco's death,
democracy should consist of more than a five-yearly trip
to the ballot box. People are demanding a voice, the
more so as the Popular-party government, secure in its
absolute majority, is exhibiting authoritarian
tendencies like those of the dictatorship from which it
is descended.
Asked if the scale of
the protest was not of some concern to his government,
Matas said that of course people were angry, especially
those from the delta and Aragon, because they felt
abandoned by the socialists during their 13 years in
government. However, nobody was taking to the streets
then, and besides, Matas's Popular party deposed the
Socialists six years ago. Matas says: 'We understand
their problems and why they are angry. The National
Water Plan is going to solve those problems.' He adds:
'This plan isn't against anyone's interests, it is a
solution for everyone.'
The government turned
the plan into an issue of loyalty. It condemns its
opponents, saying they are putting their interests above
those of the nation, and derides scientists such as
Martinez and Arrojo as misguided. Feeling that the
government is not listening, the movement against the
plan focused its attention on Brussels, whose funding is
key. Were the government to fund the scheme out of its
own resources, it would - under its own legislation -
have to recover the costs, thus making it vastly less
profitable and attractive to investors. Without European
Union funds, it is unlikely that the most controversial
part of the plan - the diversion of the Ebro - would go
ahead.With this in mind, opponents organised a Blue
March last summer, starting in Tortosa and arriving in
Brussels two months later. As well as bringing the issue
to the attention of people en route, it raised its
profile within the EU.
To win their argument
they need to show that the plan does not conform to EU
guidelines on sustainability. What does this mean?
'Well, you can get by with one kidney or one testicle,'
jokes Martinez. 'It's sustainable, but it's not
something you'd choose. But in terms of the environment
it means causing irreversible damage.'Which brings us to
the Ebro delta. The delta is one of Europe's most
important wetlands and a key breeding and migratory site
for birds, including cattle egrets and little egrets,
spoonbills, flamingos, purple gallinules and Audouin's
gulls. If water is seen as money, then water flowing
into the sea is money going to waste.
But the river water
nurtures the delta fishing industry and its vast mussel
farms. Dams upstream have already caused the delta to
sink, and have deprived it of nutrients that would
usually come down river and are vital to the future of
both fishing and rice-growing in the area. A further
loss of fresh water, combined with rising sea levels,
could lead to the salination of the entire zone.
Ironically, given the purpose of the National Water
Plan, there are people in the delta who are without
clean drinking water during the summer months.
In the natural course
of things, explains Manolo Tomas, for 10 months of the
year the river barely reaches the sea, and the mouth of
the river is pushed back by salt water. But for two
months the river's strong flow pushes the sea back,
depositing crucial sediments and maintaining the balance
between fresh and salt water. Studies assert that the
combination of further dams and draining off water for
canals will kill off the delta, along with its
specialised ecology. On the contrary, says Matas, the
plan will rescue the delta from decline.
In the opinion of
Martinez and most of his fellow hydrologists, there is
plenty of water in Spain and the problem is not one of
supply but of management (far from dying of thirst, per
capita, water consumption in Spain is double the world
average). For example, Valencia, one of the regions that
will benefit from the scheme, has plentiful underground
water - as does much of Spain - but it has been polluted
by industry. Rather than confront the polluters, they
say, the government prefers to bring in more water from
elsewhere.
The scheme's opponents
call for what they term a 'new culture of water', in
which water is not seen as a commodity but as a resource
that has an aesthetic as well as an economic value. A
river is beautiful - you can swim or fish in it, or
simply sit on its banks, whereas a dammed river is ugly
and often dangerous. Furthermore, they say it is
erroneous to claim that everyone has a right to have
access to as much water as they want, and that rivers
should not be dammed and diverted and the countryside
vandalised simply because it is commercially viable to
do so.
For now, Solano can
stand in the Calle Luis Buñuel and look out over his
bleak but beautiful valley. 'We've been fighting this
for 20 years,' he says. 'But we are weak. Only 18,000
people live in this area, so there are no votes to be
won or lost. All we can do is fight. And hope. You're a
man of the world, but I'm from here, from Artieda. If
you lose your job, eventually you'll find another one.
If I lose this, I lose everything. This is my life.'
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