Izquierda Unida Castilla-La Mancha has considered the «defeat of the PP» this Tuesday in the Congress of Deputies, reflected in the rejection of the Lower House, with the votes of the PSOE and its allies, to the consideration of the draft law of the Murcia Assembly to guarantee the Tajo-Segura transfer, considering that the Congress should put an end to the transfer, guarantee ecological flows, and comply with European regulations.
The coordinator of IU in the region, Pedro Mellado, has pointed out that IU voted against this proposal and regretted that the Castilla-La Mancha PP has «considerable internal contradiction, as it claims to defend the agricultural interests of the Castilla-La Mancha countryside, which is incompatible with the praise of the transfer that Génova makes,» as reported by the coalition in a press release.
On the other hand, IU Castilla-La Mancha believes that the PSOE «should stop defending in any way an infrastructure that is completely unsustainable.» In this sense, they point out that Francisco Lucas Ayala, a PSOE parliamentarian for the Region of Murcia, «categorically stated in the plenary session of the Congress that the PSOE neither wants nor will close the transfer.»
Izquierda Unida believes that it is not enough for the PSOE to simply defend the status quo of the canalization, but it is necessary to rethink the real legitimate purposes of the transfer.
The party reflects that the Tajo-Segura transfer has been, since its completion in 1978, an environmentally unsustainable infrastructure for supplying supplementary water to the Segura River Basin. Since its operation began, the average volume transferred annually by the infrastructure has been 328 cubic hectometers, «55% more than the maximum allowed.»
«Although the amount of transferred water destined for human consumption, such as hygiene or drinking, has not varied significantly in the historical series, the amount destined for irrigation has increased. Currently, half of the water we send to the Segura is used for irrigation of crops and golf courses,» they lament.
For IU, this amount of water used for irrigation «is worrying because, over the years, the Segura basin has shifted its production to intensive irrigation crops, such as fruits and vegetables.» «The reality is that both Castilla-La Mancha and the Murcian Levante are desertification areas, where intensive irrigation productions are not sustainable,» they explain.
Furthermore, Mellado adds, the Tajo is a river that suffers a lot of nitrate discharges, many of them coming from the tributaries of the upper bank of the river. These nitrates end up, thanks to the transfer, in the Mar Menor, where they only «contribute to the environmental disaster of a unique ecological site in Europe.»
IU Castilla-La Mancha considers the transfer an «environmentally unsustainable» infrastructure, which also «encourages the cultivation of species not adapted to the productive environment» in the beneficiary region. «Water is a fundamental human right that, considering the sustainability agreements signed by Spain and the European Union, is not being treated as such in the context of the transfer and the basins affected by it,» they have stated.