Reeds and mud, such was the avalanche that covered the port of Catarroja, in the heart of the Albufera Park, on the fateful day of October 29, when the DANA rains devastated many Valencian towns. The title of the famous novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez – which takes place in the neighboring town of Palmar, on the other side of the lake – has since become a nightmare for Catarroja, the second city in number of ports, and which has affected transversal to the locality: from its neighbors and their houses, to its factories and fields, and to its natural and ethnological spaces.
That day, the avalanche entered a large part of the city through the Poyo ravine – here called Chiva ravine – and in the urban center it devastated 30% of the trees and 40% of the The city has no public lighting. It also destroyed houses, cars and businesses, destroyed factories in the industrial zone and, approaching the Albufera, it overflowed until reaching the port located more than two hundred parallel meters away, flooding the rice fields that separate them and it also touched one of the natural jewels of the natural park, the Tancat de la Pipa.
In the spaces surrounding the wetland, as explained by the urban planner of Catarroja, Martí Raga, “not only has it covered the rice fields, but also all this ethnological heritage such as ditches and canals, the port is no longer navigable with the density of the mud which in some places reached a meter and created islands, and the large quantity of reeds which were deposited.
He explains that the Catarroja Town Hall has collaborated with wetland agents (fishermen, boatmen, farmers and restaurateurs) to the extent of its possibilities, by basically clearing the roads and access points. “But the competition for the Albufera is fundamentally that of the Generalitat, and also partly of the government (through the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar and the AGUA program) for spaces like the Tancat de la Pipa,” explains Raga.
The councilor understands that the initial efforts of the administrations have focused on rescues, clean-up and aid in reconstruction, and emphasizes that he understands that the spills are carried out in the same ravine to speed up the clean-up, which also reaches the wetland, which means that “There is a lot of mud to be dredged to bring life back to the port of Catarroja. For this reason, he warns that “action on the Albufera and its surroundings should not be postponed any longer, because this avalanche brought many pollutants, including solid waste, plastics and other elements, and more it is delayed, the more difficult and complex it is the recovery will be. Raga recalls that “the Albufera ecosystem maintains a sensitive balance, it contains endangered animal and plant species like those found in the Tancat de la Pipa, and this storm may have caused the loss of a balance that will take years to restore. to recover.” .
However, the councilor demands that “the departments and ministries must give in, they must ask for help from Europe”, and he sets the example with the municipal council itself: “The municipal budget for 2025 was on the point of being approved, and now it has jumped into the air, we must make emergency budgets On the other hand, it also asks that “the administrations themselves must act in the matter, we cannot. not tell the population now that this will happen again. “It is a storm that has been unleashed like never before and it is impossible to evaluate it.”
