THE
EBRO - The River Ebro is the third longest river in the Mediterranean, after
the Rhone and the Nile, passing through 9 nine Autonomous Communities before
flowing into the Mediterranean sea where it forms the Ebro Delta (Catalonia).
The intense use of its water
throughout the Ebro Basin puts the river under strong pressure and affects its
ecological functionality. The Delta is the most vulnerable part of the river,
altered by the drastic reduction of water and sediment flows.
Most of the Delta is a
National Park, recognized as being of International Importance by the Ramsar
Convention. It is a Special Protection Area for Birds (SPAB - 79/409/CEE), a
Community Interest Area (CIA - 85/337/EEC) and, furthermore, it is currently
under review to be declared a Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO).
The Spanish government is deliberately avoiding
the Water Framework Directive objectives.
Social
groups and other interested actors in the lower Ebro river basin have worked
intensely over the last 10 years in an attempt to ensure that the Water
Framework Directive is implemented correctly with regards to the new River
Basin Plan, to guarantee future quality and availability of water resources.
However,
we have come up time and time again against the lack of will of the Spanish
administration to comply with the Directive, with serious delays on the planned
schedule leading to legal action and fines being placed against Spain[1].
Public
declarations by the Spanish Agriculture and Environment Minister, and by
irrigation farming communities, show that the “hidden agenda” of the government
is to continue the present policy of water offer to the highest bidders,
ignoring the WFD’s idea to set minimum flows for rivers before “sharing out”
the water.
Yet one
more of our concerns is the over-allocation of the river’s resources as seen in
the Blueprint report. We believe the Spanish government must review and modify
retroactively each and every water concession which would, otherwise, make the
environmental objectives of the WFD unattainable. These water rights are
illegitimate as they have not taken into account the necessary conditions of
environmental river flows as stipulated in EU Directives. This repeated
awarding of water concessions goes against the aim of a sustainable plan for
the Ebro, and will make it extremely complicated to fulfill these aims in the
future.
ECONOMIC FRAUD
- This River Basin Plan (RBMP) will cost Spanish citizens about 800
M€/year for the 6 year period of this plan, but no cost-benefit analysis has
been made, so it is impossible to know if any of these investments will
effectively improve environmental quality in the basin or who is really
benefitting from them. Economic accounts are extremely obscure, as the RBMP
admits: “in many cases the identification of costs and revenues in the Ebro
Basin are a mere estimation”. They also state that “the proliferation of
public and private companies involved in water management in the basin, are an
obstacle for the transparency of accountability of investments”.
As a consequence, cost recovery is just as obscure as the general
accounts. Estimated data in the RBMP is not realistic and according to our
analysis this is actually limited to less than 10% of real investment costs. No
auditing is ever done to verify if public money is properly spent and we
detected different accounting “tricks” which overrate infrastructure’s yields
and undervalues their total cost.
Indeed, environmental costs are identified as the
costs of environmental measures, which lead to false figures, “end of the
pipe” solutions and does not identify the actors who determine the pressures.
Therefore, this RBMP doesn’t respect the “polluter pays” principle nor does it
use economic tools to enhance environmentally better practices in the Basin.
PETITION 0938/2012 - Given this, the social
movement, the Plataforma en Defensa de l’Ebre (Ebro defense group) and
Coordinadora Anti-transvasaments have presented Petition 0938/2012 to the
European Parliament[2]and we hope to be able to defend this Petition in a Parliamentary session
in the upcoming weeks/months.
The technical background of this petition indicates
the infringement of, at least, the following directives: 2000/60/CE WFD, 79/409/CEE Birds,
92/43/CEE Habitat, 2005/35/EC Environmental liability, 2001/42/CE EIA,
91/676/CEE Nitrates, 2008/56/CE Sea
The Euorpean Parliament accepted our petition passing
it on to the Commission for analysis, which states that it is aware of Spanish
infringement on RBMP publication and recognizes the importance of environmental
flows, but explains that potential violations may be evaluated only after
adoption and reporting of the RBMP.
In our vision this is an unnecessary and inefficient
waste of the Commission's time and resources, as it allows the Spanish
government to gain time for “fait accompli” policies, i.e. infrastructures and
water concessions which go against WFD objectives will be finished before the
Plan’s publication.
Prevention is
better and easier than curing!
Therefore we ask you, Members of the European
Parliament to take political action BEFORE the Ebro RBMP’s approval. Now is the
time for the European Commission to intervene, with a direct control over the
elaboration of this Basin Plan - ensuring a correct Plan and that no
un-repairable damage is carried out in the meantime.
The Ebro and
both its environmental social impact make it the biggest “test case” for all
European rivers and this battle is key to the future credibility of European
environmental policies.
[1] http://www.iagua.es/noticias/planificacion/13/05/02/el-retraso-en-la-aprobacion-de-los-planes-hidrologicos-le-cuesta-espana-6-millones-de-euros-al-m
[2] available on our web
http://dmadeltaebre.blogspot.com.es/
He posat tot l'article, però si voleu el retallo.
ReplyDeletehttp://international.reagrupament.cat/?p=7696
Moltes gràcies i salut!
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