Case Study 1: Matarraña River Basin - Euwareness

Hydrological Plan). The pumping project was declared of general interest by the 1995
State regulation but it was neither included in the Hydrological Plan of the Ebro basin
nor in the 1992 Aragón Water Agreement, which are the two planning instruments that
should include the hydraulic projects affecting the river basin.
The pumping project included 5 water pumps of about 500 CV each one pumping out
a maximum of 0.75 m 3 /s 140 meters high and along a pipe of 5 km long. The Regional
government of Aragón, in accordance with some biologists of the University of
Barcelona, the establishment of an ecological flow of 0.325 m 3 /s, which represents the
30 per cent of the basic flow of the Matarraña river. The main condition imposed to the
project was that water could only be pumped up from November to February/March
during 16 or 24 hours a day.
The social controversy : a conservacionist claim
The announcement of the initiation of the pumping system works in July 1995 provoked
intense mobilisations in the high basin. The first actors to react against the project are
the neighbours of the Municipality of Beceite (high basin), where the pumping project is
planned to be constructed. They formed a commission and launched an information
campaign in order to inform the whole basin about the details of the project and its
possible negative impacts. In February 1996 the construction works begun but the
municipal government, in response to the social pressure, succeed in stopping the
works. However, in March the central government revoked the city council order. The
neighbours keep under protest in two different ways. On the one hand, they organised
a series of pacific demonstrations in front of the construction works and, on the other
hand, they planned other legal actions in order to stop the project. The pressure they
exerted was so intense that the administration decided to send a group of police agents
(Guardia Civil) to guarantee the execution of the works.
In 1997 the conflict moved to the middle and low parts of the basin. No agreement was
reached in the meetings that hold between the affected neighbours, the Central Union
and actors operating at lower basin, as their interests are strongly divided. In October
the CHE reinitiated the works and the neighbours from Beceite formed the Association
extraordinarias, excepcionales y urgentes en materia de abastecimientos hidráulicos como
consecuencia de la persitencia de la sequía.
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