It was one of the options on the table to fight against the drought situation that Catalonia is currently suffering. In fact, it received the support of engineers and economists and Foment del Treball but also the rejection of the affected territory, the Terres de l'Ebre. This Thursday Comuns Sumar has clearly shown itself to be on the side of the latter and has rejected the connection of the Ebro water network with that of Barcelona, as the ERC Government also ended up ruling out.
So much so that, from Tortosa, whose municipal plenary session also ruled out this option, the candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Jéssica Albiach, has said that her party is working on a law to mitigate droughts that includes "shielding, for law, that under no circumstances will the transfer of the Ebro be carried out". In this way, according to Albiach, it will prevent anyone from having "the idea of thinking again" about it in future periods of water scarcity. "Every time there's a drought someone thinks of it," she said.
In 2008, this option was stopped when the machines were ready to start working, but the newspaper archive is even older. The transport of water from the Ebro to Barcelona was already a "definitive solution" in 1968. For Albiach, the "high ecological impact" of any new transfer of the Ebro River could be "the death sentence for the Ebro Delta, which is endangered".
But its rejection goes beyond the environmental aspect. "I believe that the Terres de l'Ebre have already more than fulfilled their quota of solidarity with the rest of Catalonia." "Enough is enough, what they need are opportunities," added the candidate, who also supports a "territorial balance" law.
The new regulation proposed by the Commons on drought also implies "shielding and accelerating investments." "We have been without a water policy for 14 years. With desalination plants planned then that have not been approved until last month," Albiach said, in the middle of the electoral pre-campaign for the Parliamentary elections, criticizing "the lack of leadership" of the ERC Government in this area. "It was an ideological decision by Convergència that ERC did not want to reverse until two days ago," he attacked.
In this sense, for Albiach the floating desalination plant located in Barcelona announced this Thursday by the Government, discarding the ships to transport water to the Catalan capital, shows that the executive led by President Pere Aragonès "has arrived late in managing the drought."
