“If the Poyo Ravine project had not been canceled, many lives would have been saved. » The spokesperson for the PP in Congress, Miguel Tellado, thus criticized the Minister of Ecological Transition and Vice-President of the Government, Teresa Ribera, for an alleged paralysis of the Poyo ravine adaptation project, which, according to the popular thesis, would have avoided the floods. The reality is that neither the project is crippled by the government, nor the execution of the project would have prevented the disaster, even if it would have partially mitigated the material damage. It is also not true that the orchard protection law is incompatible with the project, but rather it establishes criteria for landscape integration.
And, according to the documentation collected by elDiario.es (complete at the end of the information), the Ministry of Ribera, through the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar (CHJ), issued a sort of ultimatum to the Generalitat Valenciana to be able to advance in the treatment of part of this project, specifically for the project “Conditioning of the Saleta ravine. Aldaia-Nuevo channel of the Turia section”. A document that shows that it is not true that any project was canceled, as Tellado declared last Wednesday, November 20 in Congress, during Ribera’s appearance to report on the management of DANA.
Concretely, this is the response that the Ministry of the Environment gave last July to a request from the CHJ issued a month earlier for it to rule on the advisability of a report in which the CHJ proposes to The environmental body (the general direction of the Department) is continuing the approval procedures for the Saleta ravine pipeline project (the one which crosses the municipality of Aldaia, one of the most affected by DANA). In addition, it includes reports signed in February this year, which show that the process is underway.
In its response, the General Directorate of Town Planning, Landscape and Environmental Assessment of the Department of the Environment specifies that “with regard to the expropriated orchard area, from the point of view of the powers of this General Directorate, and given that it Adequate coordination between administrations is necessary, taking into account the appropriateness of the route proposed in the CHJ project on the expropriated orchards, so that they can be used for the aforementioned pipeline. All this within the framework of processing the documentation presented to this General Management.
Regarding the February 2024 report of the CHJ, it provides some clarifications: “In accordance with article 24 of Law 5/2018 of the Huerta de Valencia, the contribution of a landscape integration study is necessary, due to the “impact on the landscape of the project, this must be informed favorably before the final approval of the project, and its contribution is recommended before the issuance of the environmental report”, a statement which refutes the argument according to which this regulation is incompatible with the project.
Furthermore, regarding the proposal made by the then Territorial Management Service (SGR) in terms of evaluating another type of alternative for the final section, in the discharge to the Turia River, the CHJ indicates that another solution agreed with the National Road Demarcation of the Valencian Community which avoids an overload of the delivery system: “At the moment no documentation has been received on this new solution, it must be informed by this management general before final approval of the project. In any case, without knowing the details of the final solution adopted, a change in this section that avoids the delivery of goods to the Turia is evaluated positively.
Finally, the general management of the department specifies that “compared to what is indicated concerning the sacrificed areas, the development and the triangular green space, the Territorial Planning Service considers favorably what is indicated by the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar ( CHJ).
“This would have reduced material damage by 30%”
Ramiro Martínez Costa is a civil engineer and wrote one of the first plans related to the channeling of the Poyo ravine in 2006. In an interview on November 21 in the program “Bon Dia Comunitat Valenciana” of À Punt, he assured that “ we must do This work was proposed a long time ago, but we must not fall into the false security of believing that with this work carried out the danger has disappeared, zero risk does not exist because this would require investments. enormous and perhaps the transfer of entire populations.
Martínez Costa commented that they work with design criteria with a return period of 500 years, that is, “infrastructures capable of achieving defense against episodes that occur on average once every 500 years, it is a necessary algorithm so that we can project with design criteria” and added: “This is a bifurcation project, a set of parts throughout the Poyo basin that has contributed to the reduction of the wave of flood. On this occasion we suffered an event of biblical proportions and it is not true that if these solutions had been constructed, the catastrophe that occurred would not have been suffered in Horta Sud. According to my estimates, 20 or 30% of the material damage could have been avoided, but the overflow on the scale that we are experiencing would not have been avoided. Anyway, the fundamental question is not the reduction of material damage, but the problem of the number of deaths that we have had, which is not understandable in a country considered developed, it has to do with other issues that are not infrastructural. solutions, there are basic prevention measures and alerting the population so that they can take their own defense measures.
Regarding the alleged inconsistency with the Orchard Protection Act, he said that “it is not true that it prevents such action; It provides a series of questions to take into account in the case where we wish to promote a public action that affects the protected space, but it provides a series of tools so that such action can be carried out while maintaining a series of reflections, protection of the orchard and search for solutions producing the least impact possible.
Project blocked since 2006
In November 2006, the General Directorate of Water of the Ministry of the Environment published the specifications “Technical assistance for the development of the environmental adaptation and drainage project of the Poyo basin on the Albufera side” . As part of this technical assistance, an informative project was drawn up (it is not a constructive project), thus giving continuity to the environmental treatment of all the proposed actions and with a view to obtaining a declaration overall environmental impact.
This informative study gives rise to the writing of six projects. In November 2010, the construction projects that develop the information project for environmental adaptation and drainage of the Poyo basin on the Albufera side were completed, among which are the greenway connecting the Poyo ravine to the new bed of the Turia river and the adaptation of the Poyo ravine between the Júcar-Turia aqueduct and Paiporta, as well as the drainage of the La Saleta ravine during its passage through Aldaia and Quarter of Poblet.
On December 16, 2011, the Secretary of State for Climate Change Teresa Ribera (current minister) formulated a favorable environmental impact statement for the information project on environmental adaptation and drainage of the Poyo basin, on the side of Albufera, with a series of conditions (publication in (BOE of January 5, 2012).
On January 5, 2018, the environmental impact statement expired because the project did not start due, according to the same sources, to cuts in the PP which left between 25% and 30% of the budget available before the crisis for the water policies.
It is for this reason that in the same year the process was restarted with the cost-benefit analysis of the project. Currently, at the request of the Generalitat Valenciana, a landscape integration study is being developed which, once favorably reported by the regional administration, will lead to a favorable declaration of environmental impact, to the approval of the project and a call for tenders for the work.
