- The City Council and the Irrigation Syndicate meet with the Director General of Water, Manuel Aldeguer, to demand that this project be withdrawn
The Mayor of San Fulgencio, José Sampere, held a meeting this Friday with representatives of the Irrigation Union of the municipality and the Director General of Water of the Generalitat Valenciana, Manuel Aldeguer, to discuss the controversial proposal for ‘green corridors’, promoted by the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura in the Flood Risk Management Plan for the Vega Baja. Since this project became known, the mayor has expressed his complete rejection of this proposal which, in the event of flooding, “would mean diverting the overflowing water from other towns in the region to land located in the municipalities of Dolores, San Fulgencio or San Felipe Neri, which are at a lower altitude, with the risk of being seriously affected”.
The mayor thanked the Director General of Water for his presence, “who has come today to show the support of the Generalitat for this cause and to explain the situation to our irrigators, with the aim of eliminating any alarm that may arise”. Likewise, Sampere pointed out that “we are not going to consent in any way to being turned into a ‘sacrifice zone’ for the benefit of the rest of the territory and that this could lead to great losses for the population”.
For his part, Manuel Aldeguer stressed that “the CHS can only act on what is within its competence, such as the rivers and the canals, but it has no competence to act on the rest” In this way, he pointed out that any actions to be taken outside of this “are the responsibility of the Generalitat, the municipalities and the irrigation communities in their aqueducts, which will be determined by consensus”.
Likewise, the trustee Antonio Trives, representative of the San Fulgencio Water Union, said that “as a union we are opposed in all aspects that concern us to this plan designed by the Confederation, so we will try to make them listen to us and press as much as we can to assert our refusal”.
The mayor of San Fulgencio has declared that, with the support of the Generalitat and together with the rest of the towns that would be affected by this proposal, “we are going to demand as a Town Council that the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura cease its efforts and support the measures proposed by the Generalitat, which do have the support of both the irrigators and the municipalities”, as well as to carry out actions in the area of its competence “to control the excess water in the river and its dredging in the event of flooding”.
Sampere has indicated that there is greater concern among farmers after the publication of the CHS’s announcement of a call for tenders for a feasibility study of this project, “and which would involve the intervention of the basin organisation in the modification of the territory, the responsibility of the Generalitat, or of the irrigation structures and irrigation channels, the responsibility of the irrigators”. In this way, the mayor of San Fulgencio has informed that “we are going to ask for this proposal to be withdrawn from the public sector contracting platform, as it goes beyond the competences of the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura”.
