Costa Cálida
PP regional leaders unite to demand water transfers
By h.b.
May 8, 2008 - 7:48 AM

The Partido Popular regional leaders in Murcia, Ramón Luis Valcárcel, Valencia, Francisco Camps, and of Andalucia, Javier Arenas, have joined forces to demand water transfers be put in place by the Government.
A new protest group of Mayors in demand for water has attracted some 300 P.P. mayors from across the three regions, and demonstrations are now planned in the regions as well as in Madrid.

The group, which met in Orihuela yesterday, wants water to be piped to the dry areas in the Levante and SE of the country from the Ebro river at the south of Barcelona, and have promised to keep the pressure up on the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatrero.

The Prime Minister has instead presented a program of desalination plants, but this is delayed in many areas and the Socialists have already had to order the creation of a new pipeline from Tarragona to take emergency drinking water supplies into Barcelona.

Meanwhile the farmers in the Villena area have approved 700 million litres of water to be granted to the French food company Danone, so they can establish a water bottling plant for their Font Vella brand. The local community of ‘regantes’ will receive 240,000 € a year in exchange.