Case Study 1: Matarraña River Basin - Euwareness

epresents the emergence of a social movement claiming for a new water policy
paradigm based on water demand strategies that promote resource savings and
efficiency in their use and on the conservation of the resource, both in its quality and
quantity. At the basin level, the second half of the nineties represents the first breaking
with the traditional perspective. A social opposition movement supported by
environmental groups and experts criticises the unsustainable economic and technical
rationality; denounce the environmental negative effects of the regulation projects
constructed within the basin; and claim for the valuation and conservation of the fluvial
ecosystem of the Matarraña river in response to the hydraulic policy promoted by the
State administration. The construction of the pumping project will mark the breaking
point for this rupture. It will constitute the main argument of the social claims and will
result in a territorial conflict among the water uses within the basin.
The pumping project
After the construction of the tunnel in 1978 there was a large drought period which
lasted to 1987 and led to a new wave of social demands for regulation projects in order
to guarantee farm production. Several dam projects were proposed during the
seventies and eighties: El Pontet, Torre del Compte and Molí de les Roques, among
others. The wet period that followed, which started with the 1988 floods, relaxed the
irrigation farmers and administration claims for regulation until the beginning of the
nineties. In 1993 a new drought period started and the controversy reappeared. In this
context, in I994 the Central Union studied the possibility of pumping water up from a
lower point in the Matarraña river to the Pena dam. Finally, the Central Union rejected
the project for considering it as having a too high economic cost. It was the national
government the one approving new regulation in response to the drought period from
1992 to 1995: it provided the legal framework and financial resources to carry out the
pumping project 3 . The mentioned regulation declared several projects, included the
pumping one in the Matarraña river, of general interest of the State and were
considered as urgent measures in order to palliate the drought effects. By this, these
projects were approved avoiding the parliamentary debate which had to carry out a
deep reflection on the future water policy and planning criteria (the National
3 Real Decreto-Ley 4/1995 por el que se adoptan medidas urgentes para reparar los efectos
producidos por la sequía, y Real Decreto-Ley 6/1995 por el que se adoptan medidas
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