The Minister of Climate Action, David Mascort, has come out in defense of the Government's management in the face of the drought situation that Catalonia is experiencing and has charged this Friday against the accusations of "improvisation" by the rest of the parties. "We are the ones who have worked to guarantee that the internal basins are self-sufficient and to reactivate the investment capacity of the Catalan Water Agency," he pointed out to the Permanent Deputation of the Parliament.
In the face of criticism in recent days, he took issue with the investments made and asked the groups to "differentiate" between "long-term planning and short-term agile management." Regarding the announcement of portable desalination plants, he has rejected that their location has anything to do with tourism.
In an appearance before the Permanent Deputation of the Parliament of Catalonia at the request of the PSC, the councilor defended himself against criticism over the swimming pool decree or the purchase of 13 portable desalination plants. "Managing a drought of this size cannot be improvised, it is impossible to do it improvising," he said. According to him, the measures applied have led to a "considerable" reduction in water consumption and, specifically, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, water consumption has been reduced by nearly 10% in March compared to last year.
In this sense, he recalled that in the current legislature more money has been invested in drought management than in the last decade. "We can affirm that the Government is doing its homework and bringing the country up to date after the lethargy of the last 12 years," she stressed. Mascort has criticized that in 2008 the tanker ships reached 18 months from the start of the drought and has asserted that, in the case of the current water crisis, which has been going on for more than three and a half years, the ships are , for now, discarded.
"In the 18 months of the 2008 drought, two ships came, the works were stopped as soon as the rain arrived and the stakes for the Ebro transfer were placed. Now, after 42 months, there will be no ships, we have not stopped nor are we going to stop any work, but rather we advance them, and the transfer is ruled out," he defended.
Regarding the purchase of 13 portable desalination plants that the Government announced this past Thursday, Mascort reiterated that the location of these - one, floating, will be installed in the port of Barcelona and the rest on the Costa Brava - has "nothing to do with it" with tourism. "It is where people live, not where there is tourism: it has nothing to do with whether more or less tourists come to Barcelona, it is where six million people live and the obligation of this government is to supply them with water," stressed the head of Acción Climate.
Along the same lines, in the case of the desalination plants that will be installed between Roses and Empuriabrava, he reiterated that the situation in Empordà, where a dozen municipalities are in emergency II, is critical and that action had to be taken. "With the water left in the Darnius-Boadella reservoir we may have problems this summer, which is why we are installing 8 desalination plants now and 4 more after the summer, which confirms that it has nothing to do with tourism," he stated.
The interventions of both the opposition and the councilor have ended up being harsh. Mascort's "vehement" and "triumphalistic" tone has been criticized by parliamentary groups. The councilor assured that he was not angry, but rather justified that he is like this and usually speaks this way. He ended up, however, apologizing to the socialist Alícia Romero, since the socialist claimed to be disappointed by the tone that Mascort had used. "The response he has given us is quite unusual," said the PSC deputy.
