Costa Tropical
The Town Hall has asked the Junta to declare a ‘state of emergency’ before it is too late
Sep 9, 2016 - 1:22 PM
The drought is concerning Almuñécar
The Town Hall has asked the Junta to declare a ‘state of emergency’ before it is too late
Sep 9, 2016 - 1:22 PM
The farmers in the Río Verde valley (the green lung situated in the heart of Almuñécar) look at the sky every morning hoping for a miracle. They are desperate for rain as the drought conditions have been worsening over recent months, and now is time to take action.
Unless they can arrange rainwater to fill the irrigation ditches, salt water would enter the water table from the sea, which would dry out all the plants in a district famous for its Sub-tropical fruits and which is the vital part of the local economy, but nobody wants to imagine that disaster.
According to Manolo Novo, president of the community or irrigators in the Río Verde – with more than a thousand members – some of the workers on the land have lost the strength to go on. There are things, they say ‘which are not worth the bother’ because they feel abandoned.
Ironically inland between Almuñécar and Granada they have constructed a massive dam and created a large reservoir at Rules and as yet none of that water has been piped to the coast.
Fed up with delays and false promises they look helplessly on at the chirimoyas (the most import locally grown fruit) are thirsty for water.
Novo remembered in the 90’s droughts were terrible and many irrigators went out of business. Now, in his community, they have some dry wells and are bringing water from other places.
‘We are watering every 60 days which the ideal would be every 20’ lamented the representative for the farmers.
From the Almuñécar Town Hall the mayor, Trinidad Herrera, emitted a bylaw at the start of August, calling on her residents to ‘ration’ their water and there ‘are no excuses’ for wasting water. The bylaw achieved little; the people in the street remain oblivious to the dangerous situation.
‘The danger of the drought is already a reality, and we have asked the Junta to declare a state of emergency for the area before salt get into the water courses’ explained the irrigator from Almuñécar.
The dry Río Verde - photo J.Y (IDEAL)
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Unless they can arrange rainwater to fill the irrigation ditches, salt water would enter the water table from the sea, which would dry out all the plants in a district famous for its Sub-tropical fruits and which is the vital part of the local economy, but nobody wants to imagine that disaster.
According to Manolo Novo, president of the community or irrigators in the Río Verde – with more than a thousand members – some of the workers on the land have lost the strength to go on. There are things, they say ‘which are not worth the bother’ because they feel abandoned.
Ironically inland between Almuñécar and Granada they have constructed a massive dam and created a large reservoir at Rules and as yet none of that water has been piped to the coast.
Fed up with delays and false promises they look helplessly on at the chirimoyas (the most import locally grown fruit) are thirsty for water.
Novo remembered in the 90’s droughts were terrible and many irrigators went out of business. Now, in his community, they have some dry wells and are bringing water from other places.
‘We are watering every 60 days which the ideal would be every 20’ lamented the representative for the farmers.
From the Almuñécar Town Hall the mayor, Trinidad Herrera, emitted a bylaw at the start of August, calling on her residents to ‘ration’ their water and there ‘are no excuses’ for wasting water. The bylaw achieved little; the people in the street remain oblivious to the dangerous situation.
‘The danger of the drought is already a reality, and we have asked the Junta to declare a state of emergency for the area before salt get into the water courses’ explained the irrigator from Almuñécar.
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