ebro delta

Climate change and hydroelectric plants pose an existential threat to plants, animals, and businesses

The European Parliament (EP) approved this Wednesday the assessment presented by a delegation of MEPs who visited the Ebro Delta on the 8^th of February. In their report, the MEPs focused on the “lack of ecological flow” and questioned whether Spain’s Ebro Water Plan (PHE) was in compliance with community law. Catalan MEPs and the Platform for the Defence of the Ebro Delta (PDE) celebrated the decision but urged the European Commission to act “quickly, clearly and firmly” and stop the plan projected by the Spanish Government. Even so, PDE’s spokesperson Manolo Tomás and Susana Abella considered the EP’s decision to be “an important step toward modifying Spain’s Water Plan” and “recognition” of the social demonstrations of the last years.

Six MEPs from the Committee on Petitions visited the Ebro Delta, in Catalonia’s southern region of Tarragona, to meet the several petitioners who have claimed that Spain’s new National Water Plan (NWP) may infringe the EU Water Framework Directive. Environmentalists say one of Europe's most important wetland areas is under threat as Spain’s new Plan aims to reduce the river’s flow to 3,000 cubic hectometres per year and add 465,000 new hectares of irrigated lands to an already existing one million hectares, which will also contribute to cutting the sediment level dramatically. Besides the risk to the delta’s survival, the Platform for the Defence of the Ebro Delta (PDE) are worried that ultimately these waters could be transferred to other, drier regions of Spain. The visit of the EU delegation comes after 50,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Amposta in Catalonia on Sunday to protest against the plans.

Hunters and park rangers are currently working together to try to contain the outbreak of Scabies in the wild population of Iberian ibex in the mountainous area of Terra Alta, in the south of Catalonia. This is the last surviving population of this local species throughout Catalonia, after it became extinct from the Pyrenees. Negotiations between the two parties began late last month after the Catalan Government's Department of Agriculture granted permission to hunt and kill the infected specimen before the disease spreads. A previous case in 1987, which eliminated 97% of the goat population, has meant that the Department of Agriculture is not taking this news lightly and want a swift yet controlled extermination of the diseased animals in order to prevent the extinction of the species in Catalonia.

Indignation at the Castor Project has increased due to the €1.35 billion payment issued by the Spanish Government to Escal UGS, the company behind the controversial offshore gas platform. The amount will be charged through gas bills to consumers over the next 30 years, starting on April 2016, making individual citizens pay the private-business bailout, partially funded through €1.4 billion worth of bonds from the European Union. This business project failed after a gas injection caused almost 1,000 small earthquakes in Southern Catalonia and northern Valencia. The Spanish Executive has been forced to compensate the company due to clause 14 of the 2008 Royal Decree, according to which the state would pay for the bailout in the event of the project failing to come to completion. 

Beyond Barcelona, other port cities in Catalonia that are also cruise ship destinations are closing the 2014 season with positive results. The Ports of Palamós and Roses in Girona’s Costa Brava (northern Catalonia), and that of Sant Carles de la Ràpita in the Ebro Delta (south of Tarragona Province) will be closing this season having brought a total of 43,000 passengers on 50 cruise ships. This will have generated a total of €3 million for the local economy. The Port of Palamós has had its second best season in history with 38,616 passengers and 36 cruises. The Port of Roses closed the season in October with 10 cruise ships bringing a total of 3,700 passengers, while that of Sant Carles de la Ràpita brought a total of 4 ships and half a thousand passengers to the region. The city of Tarragona, which received approximately 2,000 passengers in 2013, is hoping to double these figures for 2014. Moreover, the Port Authority of Tarragona is planning to build a new terminal over the next four years, with a goal of bringing 40,000 or 50,000 passengers per year when completed.

On Friday, the Spanish Government approved the €1,350 million compensation to Escal UGS, the company behind the controversial Castor Project, a submarine facility built to store 1.3 billion tonnes worth of gas reserves off the Ebro Delta coast. This project failed after it was found to have caused almost 1,000 small earthquakes. This amount will be financed through increased tariffs to gas consumers over the next 30 years, resulting in public compensation for a private investment. The Spanish Government is obliged to pay the developer Escal UGS, because of a clause in the 2008 Royal Decree whereby the State would agree to compensate the company should the project be unable to be completed. An appeal of this law was rejected by the Spanish Supreme Court last October. The Spanish Government has argued that this solution is cheaper than operating the project. The Catalan Government however, which had opposed the project from the start, has appealed this decision to the Constitutional Court.

On Monday, the 'World Travel Market' (WTM) opened in London and Catalonia is participating with a 300 m² exhibition stand promoting a variety of its tourist destinations and highlighting its uniqueness with areas as diverse as the city of Barcelona, the Costa Brava and the Penedès wine region. The WTM is highly important in the tourism and travel industry, and represents a crucial opportunity for business networking and attractive investment. Catalonia’s participation strengthens its growing importance as a holiday destination for British tourists, who have increased by 4% and represent revenue of €1 billion in the first 10 months of 2014, the second largest after the French. Through the event, Catalan companies will mix with 5,000 other organizations from 200 countries, with an estimated 50,000 professionals from the industry participating.

The Spanish Government plans to compensate €1.35 billion to the companies behind the failed Castor project, the off-shore gas storage facility built off the coast of Vinaròs, a Valencian town near the Catalan border. The company Escal UGS, controlled with a 66.7% stake by ACS, filed a claim in July last year for the €1.6 billion cost. The project which funded with €1.4 billion worth of bonds issued by the European Investment Bank in a controversial new funding scheme, was forced to temporarily stop a few weeks after it began in September last year, after it was found to be responsible for almost 1,000 earthquakes in Catalonia's Ebro Delta.  However, due to a clause from 2008 in the agreement, Escal was legally entitled to compensation. The Spanish Government tried to free itself of this obligation, but last October the Supreme Court allowed it. This decision has been highly controversial and will cause further political, financial and ecological earthquakes.

From Thursday to Sunday the 19^th edition of Tortosa's Renaissance Festival attracted more than 200,000 visitors from all over Europe, who filled the city located in the Ebro Delta area in southern Catalonia. The Mayor of Tortosa, Ferran Bel, emphasised the consolidation of the festival  and the high participation numbers with many international visitors, including foreign tourists and participating companies, such as theatre groups, music bands and food traders. Bel revealed that development work  would soon take place in the old town of Tortosa and further changes would be introduced to improve next year's festival.The Mayor said that the festival had attracted considerable attention not only in southern Europe, but across the entire continent.

The Catalan Executive announced it will take the Spanish Government’s Hydrologic Plan for the Ebro River (Plan Hidrológico del Ebro) to the European Commission, as it will damage the river’s delta, which is a unique environment and one of UNESCO’s Biosphere Reserves. The European Commission replied that it will need “weeks or even months” to analyse the plan, which only guarantees that around 30% of the river’s volume of flow will reach the delta. According to scientific studies, such a volume of water is absolutely insufficient to preserve the Delta, which is a reserve for wildlife as well as a tourist and agricultural centre. The project foresees allocating almost 11,000 cubic hectometres of water per year upstream to irrigate 1.41 million hectares of fields, a third of them newly-created. Brussels is still waiting for Madrid’s documentation but the Commission warned that it will look at the plan “from all the possible angles”.

The language skills of Catalonia’s population to understand, read, speak and write in Catalan have reached record highs, according to a report from the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (Idescat) with data from 2011. That year, 95.2 % of the residents could understand Catalan, 79.1 % could read it, 73.2 % knew how to speak it, and 55.8 % knew how to write in this language. According to the Idescat figures, the foreign nationality population has registered the highest increases: 82.1 % of them stated they could understand Catalan in the 2011 survey, whereas, according to the previous census from 2001, only 61.1% of the foreign-born population had good language comprehension skills.

A series of earthquakes measuring between 2 and 4.2 on the Richter scale have been affecting the coast of southernmost Catalonia and northernmost Valencia in the last few weeks but particularly since last weekend. All the evidence suggests that the Castor offshore gas reservoir is behind the earthquakes. In 2009, the Spanish Government approved the building of an underground gas reservoir located under the sea bed, some 20 kilometres offshore from the Ebro Delta and Vinarós, using the cavity in the rock from a former oil field. Madrid approved the project without an earthquake risk report, despite a formal petition from the Catalan Government. Now, geologists, the Spanish Industry Ministry and the company admit that the injection of gas into the rock could be triggering the earthquakes. Activities have been stopped and the Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case.