Posted on 06/18/2004 6:32:57 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
The new socialist government in Spain has renounced a bitterly contested project to divert water from the country's largest river basin in the north to the parched south-east, saying it would build desalination plants instead.
The country's most important ecological group, Ecologistas En Accion, welcomed the scrapping of what it called the "pharaonic" water plan, a pet project of the previous conservative government that was strongly supported by the construction industry.
The group said the government still had not learned that what the dry Mediterranean coast of Spain needs is not more water but a sustainable model of development.
Parts of southern provinces such as Almeria and Murcia are slowly turning into desert because of rampant over-use of scarce water resources and rivers have run dry.
Greenhouses covering virtually every scrap of territory in Almeria provide most of the fresh fruit and vegetables in northern European supermarkets.
Golf courses, hotels and sprawling urban developments are placing a heavy load on fast depleting aquifers.
The previous government said its water plan was an act of justice, designed to even out inequalities between north and south.
The plan included a complex system of dams and pipelines to transfer water from the Ebro basin in the north to the Mediterranean littoral.
The project, which would have entailed building dams in dozens of unspoiled valleys in the Pyrenees, met with furious opposition in the north, where hundreds of thousands of people took part in protest demonstrations.
The European Parliament opposed giving Spain any subsidies for the 4.2 billion euro ($US5.1 billion) system of tunnels and dams.
The European Commission also expressed serious reservations about the environmental impact on the Ebro basin, which embraces one of Europe's largest wetlands.
The socialists, who won the general election on March 13, strongly opposed the transfer plan while in opposition.
ping
Got to watch those socialists. They are killing this state too. Really sorry they all seem to have Rs behind their names.
,,, thanx for this Willie - good spotting.
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