The dimensions and appearance of the Mequinensa reservoir, bordering the Catalan region of Ribera d'Ebre, are impressive. Gigantic contrast in the midst of the worst drought in the history of Catalonia, with the nine reservoirs in its internal basin at 16.9% average capacity. The Mequinensa reservoir is at 81%, with a reserve of 1,115 cubic hectometers (Hm³) of water.
On a cold and foggy day, silence dominates the winter landscape. With hardly any people, fans of sport fishing sail with three small motor boats and a pedal canoe through the Riba-roja reservoir, at 97.6% of its capacity (204.8 Hm³). Miniatures in front of the huge swamp wall.
Baptized as “the sea of Aragon” by the Aragonese, the storms and rainfall of this late autumn in Alto Aragón, Navarra and La Rioja have turned around the situation of a reservoir that a little over a year ago reached its historical low (22%). The hydroelectric plant was even on the verge of stopping, something that had not happened since its inauguration (1966), with Franco present.
Mequinensa, connected to the Riba-roja and Flix reservoirs (80%), is the main reference to activate the drought emergency phase in the Catalan municipalities that drink from the Ebre River. Thanks to the rains upstream, the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE), a public entity dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition with full powers over the river, deactivated the emergency a month ago.
The largest reservoir in the entire Ebro watershed is the main reference taken by the CHE for a wide territory, the Terres de l'Ebre, the Camp de Tarragona and part of the Baix Penedès, supplied by water from the Ebro mini-transit. A large and diverse region with about seventy municipalities that depend on the Tarragona Water Consortium (CAT), the body that manages the ministry.
The situation now is much more favorable, but in spring and summer the irrigators of the Ebro delta were left with only half of the Ebro water concession by order of the CHE, something never seen before and with consequences for the rice fields and the ecosystem of the entire wetland.
Although so recent, it seems like a mirage on the river. The enormous turbines of the Mequinensa hydroelectric plant rotate to produce electricity in a normal situation. "We did not foresee a recovery like this, we could have even filled the swamp more, but a safeguard is always left to prevent the entry of more water and to prevent any damage from occurring downstream," explains Ángel García, head of control centers. of Enel Green Power (Endesa). They do not rule out that if more rainfall occurs in Alto Aragón, Navarra and the Basque Country, key for Mequinensa, floodgates will open and water will be released this winter. “This happens half the years and it's not a bad thing,” García adds.
Two large jets of water come out from the Mequinensa power plant to the Riba-roja reservoir, in a routine maneuver when the turbine is turned. Water eddies form above the swamp that fishermen try to take advantage of. The Mequinensa reservoir is famous worldwide for the size of its fish; It is the mecca of catfish in Europe.
A minimal sheet of water seeps through the wall of the swamp, below the six large, closed floodgates. This small leak of water occurs when the reservoir is on its way to filling, due to the pressure of the accumulated water, explains one of the workers. He himself remembers when the six floodgates had to be opened in the winter of 2015 to release in a controlled manner some 1,500 cubic meters of water per second due to the increase in the flow of the Ebro after heavy rainfall and the melting of snow upstream. “The Ebro is a river with great avenues of water, but with the drought we have forgotten it,” García highlights.
“The Ebro is another world,” comments a fisherman on the shore. No sign, apparently, of the drought. The dining room of the Las Tres Parrillas de Mequinensa restaurant is presided over by an immense photo of the reservoir releasing a huge amount of water, in 2015.
Like a chimera in times of extreme drought. The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) insists that, if it continues without rain, in June the shipment of boats loaded with water from the Ebro mini-transfer from the port of Tarragona to Barcelona will be activated. A plan that runs into opposition from the majority of the Terres de l'Ebre, with the Platform in Defense of l'Ebre (PDE) at the forefront, the movement that already opposed the temporary interconnection in 2008, but with a pipeline, of the mini-transfer with the Ter-Llobregat system to face the drought. Then the rain came, heavy, after the prayers to Moreneta, and the project was put away in a drawer.
The PDE insists that “there is no excess water in the Ebro River” and gives as examples the fragility of the Ebro delta and the need to guarantee a much greater ecological flow in the final stretch of the Ebro. The platform has been critical of the management of swamps for sediment retention.
The water from the Ebro mini-transfer has made it possible to avoid restrictions despite the drought in Tarragona, the second most populated area in Catalonia. The Costa Daurada suffered serious restrictions due to lack of drinking water before the mini-transfer was approved, four decades ago.
A temporary connection with the water of the Ebro, approved by the CHE at the request of the Generalitat for an extendable period of six months, has ended the nightmare of two small towns in the Priorat, Vilella Baixa and Bisbal de Falset, which in summer they ran out of mouth water. The connection with the CAT, in one year, will also end the torture of the 2,800 residents of Espluga de Francolí (Conca de Barberà), the Catalan municipality that has suffered the most from the drought, with daily cuts in the supply from 2022 .
The Government insists on ruling out the connection of Ebro water with the Ter-Llobregat system through pipes. The recovery of the Mequinensa reservoir and the situation of the Ebro basin will predictably become a controversial argument in favor of those who see these now generous waters as the lifeline for the metropolitan area of Barcelona and part of Girona.
