Some 3,000 farmers from the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca demonstrated this Monday in the center of the city of León to demand that the delivery of water to Portugal under the Albufeira agreement be stopped.
The Albufeira Pact, signed by the two countries on November 30, 1998 for the administration and use of water in the five river basins they share, including the Douro, regulates the protection and sustainable use of their waters.
The president of the Association of Irrigation Communities of the Duero Basin (Ferduero), Ángel González Quintanilla, denounced that the first affected by the extraordinary releases in Santa Teresa, Águeda and Irueña were the farmers of Salamanca.
Now it is the turn of the communities of León to suffer the consequences of the overflow of water that has been taking place since September 9 in the Riaño and Porma reservoirs, in the Esla-Valderaduey system,” added González Quintanilla.
Ferduero denounced that it is a “plunder” that is taking place unilaterally and without any type of dialogue, accusing the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge of continually turning its back on irrigation and the rural world.
After a meeting with farmers last week, the deputy delegate of the Government in León, Faustino Sánchez, stressed that the transfer of water to Portugal “is mandatory” within the framework of the agreement signed between the two countries.
As a result of this agreement, the two largest reservoirs in the Duero basin – Almendra, on the Tormes river between Salamanca and Zamora, and Ricobayo, on the Esla river, in Zamora, both intended mainly for hydroelectric production – will have to cede to Portugal more than half of the water they currently have in reservoirs.
EITHER agreement provides for the shipment to Portugal of some 870 cubic hectometres of water stored in Spanish reservoirs in the Duero basinof which about 650 come from these two large reservoirs.
Thus, in the next two weeks, before the end of the current hydrological year on September 30, Spain must have complied with that agreement and, for this, it must give the Portuguese Duero basin the stipulated minimum amount of reservoir water in the agreement signed in November 1998. .
Source: Observadora
