The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, meets this morning with the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, in Madrid. The meeting comes two weeks after that call regarding the transfer of desalinated water from Sagunt to Barcelona by boat – if the drought worsens -, to which Mazón responded with “solidarity”, and in the context of agrarian protests also in the territory. Valencia, where another important mobilization is scheduled for Thursday in the Port of Valencia.
Thus, the head of the Consell is committed to making a “clean slate” and, from there, begin to work on “solutions” to address the water situation in Spain, an issue that he claims must have “dialogue and the participation of all”.
Yesterday, in statements reported by Europa Press after the Madrid mascletà, he assured that he hopes “to be able to talk about solutions for the present and future” with Minister Ribera, “and not about problems of the present and the past.” “It’s time to wipe the slate clean with everything that has happened in Spain with water and think about a future based on the rigor and solidarity that we citizens of the Valencian Community also practice,” she said.
Last Friday, after meeting with a representation of the community of Valencian irrigators, he assured that today he will put “the ideological cuts to the Tajo-Segura transfer” on the table. He spoke of a “debt of 200 cubic hectometres. “An amount that in economic terms is equivalent to 791 million euros of Gross Added Value (GVA) that the irrigators of the Segura basin have lost.”
These demands regarding water will not be the only ones, since in December the Consell took on as its own the study of the Valencian employers’ association that estimates the deficit in water investments to meet the water needs of the Valencian Community at 2.2 billion euros. , both for human consumption and for other activities, such as agriculture. The report prepared by the CEV indicated that, of the total, some 1,186 million should be assumed by the State.
Likewise, the main bulk of the investments would be allocated to irrigation (1,171 million euros) and another significant amount to supply (346 million euros).
By basin, the CEV report distinguished the need to invest up to 769.1 million euros in the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS), where most of the investments would be allocated to irrigation (642.9 million euros). In Júcar, 1,494.86 million euros were budgeted, with several notable items, such as 528.44 million for irrigation as well as 250.21 million for sanitation and purification and another 263.36 million euros for urban supply.