A combination of political compromise and a bit of rainfall and snowmelt, which raised the average levels of the Catalan reservoirs from 20.1% of capacity to over 25%, seems to have provided a temporary breathing space in the water crisis in northeastern Spain.
The Catalan drought, which threatens to leave five million people in Barcelona without drinking water, is only one example of a worldwide increase in Climaticide induced drought (Australia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Chile, etc.).
In Spain, where political battles over water have a long tradition, the infighting has been bitter and the crisis is still far from over. Even as the bulldozers and backhoes begin work on the pipeline that will carry water from the Ebro river to Barcelona, irrigators block highways in protest, other regions complain they are not receiving equal treatment, and debate rages over whether the country should build another pipeline from the Rhône river in France to provide a long-term solution to the area's water problem.
Can the United States, like Spain, a developed country with a growing water problem, draw useful lessons from the Spanish experiences? It would seem prudent to at least have a look.
[Note: Links below sections are to the source material for that section. All translations are mine]
After weeks of maneuvering and contradictory declarations a compromise was worked out between the Catalan government, the Generalitat, and the central government in Madrid on diverting water from the Ebro river to Barcelona. For background information on the Catalan drought see my previous posts here, here, and here.
The Government and the Generalitat sealed a deal today to begin work on May 1 on the extension of the so-called mini-diversion of the Ebro to Tarragona with the goal of supplying some 50 cubic hectometers of water to the Barcelona area from the "surplus" of the delta's irrigators.
This according to Environment Minister, Elena Espinosa and her Catalan counterpart, Counselor Francesc Baltasar who emphasized during their press conference that they we're talking about a "provisional, emergency" measure, which would not remove a single additional drop of water from the river nor diminish its flow.
The heads of Environment for the Government and the Generalitat, who have rejected the use of the term "diversion" to describe this action, explained also that the pipeline that will connect the Ebro water with the Ter-Llobregat system will be 62 kilometers long, mostly underground and run along the route of the AP-7 freeway.
The cost of the project will be between 170 and 180 million euros to be paid by the federal government. Another 24 million euros will be spent on a plan to improve the efficiency of irrigation in the area around the Ebro Delta.
After meeting for two hours with Catalan president, José Montilla, Espinosa and Baltasar appeared at a press conference in which they declared that:
...the mini-diversion will have no environmental impact, that an environmental impact statement will not be required for reasons of urgency and that the pipeline could only be used again in a new case of extreme drought after a new authorization by royal decree.
Baltasar stated that both administrations consider that once the desalination plant in Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona)comes on line in May 2009 that the measure adopted today "will not have to be relied upon again."
Work on the new pipeline is expected to begin in various locations simultaneously on May 1 with completion scheduled for October. Espinosa went on to say that with the savings from the new irrigation technology "water will be recovered that today, owing to very old infrastructure, is lost and goes unused either by farmers or citizens." Estimates are that around 20% or more of Spanish water is lost from leaky pipes.
La Vanguardia, Barcelona April 15, 2008
Not everyone is pleased with the new "temporary" measures. Although the original National Hydrologic Plan (PHN), which called for more dam building and extensive transfer of water between river basins, was proposed by the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party) in 1993, during the conservative People's Party (PP) governments of 1996-2004, as the PSOE became more aware of the environmental issues and the potential for regional conflict embodied in a water policy based on transfers of water from one catchment area to another, it changed tack, opposing (at least at the national level) the PHN that the PP passed in 2001. When it finally returned to power in 2004, the PSOE revised the PHN, cancelling planned water diversions from the Ebro River, choosing to emphasize water conservation and efficiency instead.
This division over water policy has affected the Spanish political map. [link in Spanish] Aragón, in Northern Spain, a water contributor under the 2001 plan, has consistently voted socialist since 2003, while Valencia in the southeast a would-be water recipient has been dominated by the conservative PP.
The current water crisis in Barcelona has only exacerbated these tensions. Both Valencia and Murcia are now threatening legal action [link in Spanish] if measures are not taken to supply them with water from the Ebro as well. According to Ramón Luis Valcárcel, President of the regional government of Murcia.
If we do not go back to the content of the previous PHN regarding the diversions, "we will go to the Constitutional Court because the principle of equality embodied in the Spanish Constitution is being violated,"
It is worth noting here, that the only reason the central government in Madrid agreed to the transfer of water from the mouth of the Ebro to Barcelona is because of the danger that, without emergency government action, 5 million Catalans would end up without drinking water. Murcia and Valencia, the most rapidly growing areas in Spain currently, on the other hand, want Ebro water to water golf courses and for new development.
Government First Vice-President, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega responded by underlining
the importance of avoiding "prejudices and falsehoods that annoy and pit some Spaniards against others," stressing that the measures adopted today in response to an emergency situation, were, as she put it, to avoid the citizens of Barcelona finding themselves in October without water to drink.
[snip]
The vice president explained that the central and Catalan governments had studied different alternatives for guaranteeing Barcelona's water supply and were convinced that the one chosen was "the best option," and the most sustainable given that they were not going to withdraw "one more drop from the Ebro," and would have no influence on the Ebro's flow. She also emphasized that they were talking about a "temporary" solution that was not going to have environmental effects because it was going to follow the route of the AP-7 freeway.
The new Tarragona-Abrera [near Barcelona]pipeline, De la Vega said, is the "same" as other pipelines that have been used previously expressing that it is "surprising" and "disappointing" that there is an attempt to "humiliate" the Barceloneses "for demanding exactly the same thing that the citizens of Valencia and Benidorm rightfully got when they needed it. "The citizens of Barcelona have the same rights as any other citizen, she emphasized."
La Vanguardia, Barcelona April 18, 2008
While the vice president was upbraiding the Government's critics, the Environmental Minister both reached out to the regional authorities and defended the Government's policies.
The new head of Environment[Elena Espinoza] has expressed her openness to dialogue with the regions to review certain aspects of water policy resulting from the "distortions" produced in demand by factors unrelated to [the actions] of the autonomous communities or the Government.
Among these factors, the minister cited population increase from immigration, the development and zoning plans of certain town councils, and climate change.
Espinosa insisted that this dialogue we be carried out "always in accordance with the policy and goals of the Government's AGUA Program which stresses savings and efficiency in water consumption, desalinization, and the purification of waste water.
The minister insisted that this is a temporary measure "with clearly defined maximums, and which will be offset by voluntary concessions from the irrigators associations so that the Ebro River does not suffer any impact to its flow."
La Vanguardia, Barcelona April 19, 2008
The board of directors of the Ebro irrigators associations has proposed that it's members cut their water usage by 1.5 cubic meters per second in order to aid Barcelona, but have emphasized that this is a one-time action and that they are neither selling nor surrendering any of their water rights. The proposal to cut water usage was most likely made in order to keep the Government from forcing them to sell some of their water-rights (in the long run it may not be enough), which government officials have said is an option, albeit not the preferred one.
In the meanwhile, as part of ongoing protests, irrigators from the Ter River area are demanding financial compensation [link in Spanish] for water taken from their river to supply Barcelona and that flows be restored. [Note: in Spain 80% of water use is for irrigation, while agriculture produces only around 3.5% of GNP.]
Jordi Borja of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya provides the following analysis:
Reality has another face. The anti-city sentiment, especially against Barcelona "whose voracity has no limits and to whom giving water is like giving cocaine to a drug addict," according to the words of a city councilman is based on prejudice. Barcelona consumes relatively little water (110/130 liters per person per day). In the inner and outer suburban areas the per-person, but is similar to consumption levels in the urban areas along the Ebro. The truth is we live in an urban society and unless we apply a "Cambodian program" in the manner of Pol Pot and deport five million people to the sparsely populated parts of the country, it will be necessary to guarantee water for everyone. The growth model can be debated, but the waste of soil, water, energy and air is not a product of the large compact city, but rather of the urban sprawl that has prevailed in the last decades. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the population of the metropolitan area has barely changed, but the urban area has doubled.
El País,Madrid April 28, 2008
Longer term, diversion from the Rhône continues to be a topic of discussion. But if this option is chosen it apparently will require a long term commitment.
Jean-Louis Blanc, Former manager of the firm BRL (which holds the concession on Rhône river water (...) spoke about long term solutions. There are two, he said, desalinization and diversion from the Rhône. He defended the second. When asked about costs (in addition to the payment for the water) he stated that it is essential that there be a commitment to purchase the water until the necessary investment has been amortized, a figure that he put at 21 years.
El País, Madrid April 29, 2008
Alba Montecristo-UE, a Spanish firm from Ciudad Real is offering a different proposal: to build an underwater pipeline from the Rhône to Catalonia. The pipeline would start at the mouth of the river, 100 meters offshore where the water is still freshwater and be built within two miles of and parallel to the coast to avoid conflict with trawlers fishing in the area. Antonio Ibañez, a spokesperson for the firm estimates that such a pipeline could be constructed in 8 months once work began and supply water to Catalonia substantially cheaper than one built on land.
The diversion from the Rhône over land would cost 1.4 billion euros and take five years to construct, including time for political debate. The water would cost 80 eurocents per cubic meter. The underwater pipeline reduces construction costs to 800 million euros, construction time to eight months (plus time for political debate) and would provide water at a cost of 22 eurocents per cubic meter.
El País, Madrid May 2, 2008
This is, obviously, not the end of the story. Spain, which has only 60% of the water reserves per capita of the average European country will face increased natural and political stresses as Climaticide worsens and drought increases.
Throughout the 20th century Spain has relied on large scale water diversion projects for irrigation and to generate hydroelectric power. There are nearly twice as many reservoirs in Spain, 1,200 as in any other country in Europe with a storage capacity equal to 50% of the country's total annual runoff. Yet much of Spain has water problems. These occur in areas of natural aridity where intensive irrigation is practiced, not unlike the American Southwest.
There are a number of lessons that the US could draw from the Spanish experience. I've compiled a few of them below. Some are widely known, others perhaps less so. The list is incomplete to say the least. Please share any ideas that you have in the comments.
- The age of dams is over. There aren't many rivers left to dam and we now know that the environmental consequences of dams frequently outweigh the benefits they provide. Storing water in open reservoirs in hot areas in an age of scarcity makes no sense whatsoever.
- The first solution to water shortages should always be conservation and efficiency. Such measures rarely require huge capital outlays and save money in the long run and boost economic productivity in the long run. If Barcelona can cut it's per capital water use to 110 liters per person so can Las Vegas.
- To avoid catastrophic water crises, governments must plan ahead. Moreover, in the Age of Climaticide, the past is no longer an adequate guide to the future. Droughts are occurring more frequently and lasting longer. Once-in-a-hundred-year droughts are becoming once-a-decade droughts. Any planning that fails to take this fact into account courts disaster.
- The lack of a price for water that reflects its true scarcity guarantees that it will be wasted, either through poor infrastructure, waste, or inappropriate uses.
- Water can be divisive or a force for unity, depending on the policies that are applied to it. Poor planning and poor policies can pit neighbor against neighbor. Divisions over water offer opportunities for political opportunists to play one group against another. Witness the regional feuds and the link between concerns about immigration and water consumption in Spain. Sustainable solutions can unite people by giving them a common purpose.
- Good water policy requires public involvement. When the conservative People's Party first proporsed diverting water from the Ebro in the 2001 National Hydrologic Plan, massive demonstrations,some with more than 400,000 (!) protesters, were held in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza and other Spanish cities. Ten thousand Spaniards walked to Brussels to demand that the European Union enforce environmental rules that the Spanish government, and it's own bureaucracy were ignoring. They succeeded.
- Good water policy requires good science and the political will to heed what that science tells you. Hydrologists have been telling Spanish politicians for nearly two decades now that the government's hydrologic model was broken. By failing to heed those warnings Spain now finds itself spending 180 million euros to build a pipeline that it will only (supposedly) use for six months until Barcelona's desalinization plant comes on line. And the final word on desalination has not yet been spoken. Spain now has nearly 950 desalination plants, but what the environmental costs to its coasts and marine life will be still are not clear.
- Good science says that water use must be sustainable. Water use that fails to take into account limits on resources, aquifer depletion or pollution, water services, such as flood control and water purification provided by rivers, streams and wetlands, or the effect on wildlife and ecosystems is not sustainable and must be changed or ended.
- Population affects resource consumption. Since resources are not infinite, they cannot support infinite population growth.
- It is absurd to promote large scale development in areas with little water such as Valencia/Murcia in Spain or Arizona/Nevada in the US. It is a waste of resources and eventually leads to political conflict (or worse).