Environmental groups of the Madrid’s community have presented an appeal for reconsideration against the resolution of the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation that extends the water concession of the Los Rosales Dam (Galapagar), although it is no longer used for supply, the only authorized use. The appealed CHT resolution facilitates the transfer of ownership of the current private entity to the Galapagar City Council, which will have to face the high maintenance costs and the future costs of the definitive removal of the dam.
The transfer of private concessions to municipal entities, freeing commercial entities from their maintenance obligations and the costs of removing this type of dam, has already occurred in other Madrid municipalities. The CHT is abandoning its river restoration and Public Domain recovery obligations when water concessions are abandoned and extinguished. Despite the thousands of barriers abandoned in the rivers of the Tagus basin, the CHT has practically abandoned the implementation of the River Restoration Strategy.
The Los Rosales dam It is an important infrastructure 14 meters high and 230 meters long, built in 1968 on the stream of The Fathera tributary of the Guadarrama River. The dammed water was initially intended to supply drinking water to the Parquelagos urbanization (Galapagar), for which it has an authorization to use 555,000 cubic meters per year. But since the Canal de Isabel II incorporated the entire municipality of Galapagar into the distribution network, the dam lost its usefulness, at least since April 2007. Since then the reservoir has been conserved using the water for purposes other than those authorized.
On different occasions, the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation (CHT) has verified that the holder of the concession, the company “Ciudad Parquelagos Conservation Collaborating Urban Planning Entity”, does not use the exploitation for the purpose for which it was granted. It also does not comply with some of the conditions of the concession, such as the obligation to install a flow meter to measure water consumption.
In these cases, water legislation clearly determines that the CHT must open an extinction file, which would mean the removal of the dam and restoration of the stream by the concession holder (art. art. 101 of Law 33/2003 , of Heritage of the Public Administrations) or, start a new concession that justifies the need to authorize a new use, by means of a reasoned resolution.
Controversy over the Rosales dam
In this case, the CHT has not opted either for the extinction of the existing use or for initiating a new extinction procedure. Apart from the regulated procedure, the managing body of the public hydraulic domain has issued a resolution archiving the extinction file, justifying that the use remains active.
Such a statement is not true. The water is not being used for the authorized use, which is supply. What is happening is that a modest pumping facility is being used to irrigate a small area of 0.5 hectares of grassland around the reservoir.
A disproportion equivalent to maintaining the volume of water in a swimming pool to irrigate a few pots. The excuse of this use of irrigation is allowing the conservation of an obsolete dam whose only purpose is purely aesthetic. This is a situation similar to that of the Los Peñascales dam, in Torrelodones.
The irregular decision of the CHT that allows an unrealistic concession to be extended has other consequences such as allowing the transfer of ownership of the dam to the Galapagar City Council, as stated publicly. A change that, if it occurs, would transfer to the residents of Galapagar the current costly maintenance obligations of an infrastructure currently destined for marginal use.
But above all, it would be the local institution that would have to face the high costs of withdrawing the Jack which is a temporary occupation of the public hydraulic domain of the La Pedrera stream. In this way, the current private owner would be freed from very important economic obligations derived from the application of the Water Law.
In the opinion of the Association for the Recovery of the Native Forest (ARBA), Jarama El Soto Ecologist Association, Ecologists in Action of the Community of Madrid, Action Group for the Environment (GRAMA), Jarama Vivo and Liberum Naturathe Galapagar City Council, with the collaboration of the CHT, are making it easier to burden the public treasury with a responsibility that does not correspond to it.
For the reasons stated, these organizations have presented an appeal for reconsideration before the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation itself, requesting the annulment of the resolution by which the concession of the Los Rosales dam is extended and requesting its withdrawal and restoration.
The CHT hinders its channel restoration objectives
In the Community of Madrid there have already been other cases of transfer of obligations from individuals to city councils with the consequent impact on public budgets. This is the case of Torrelodones and the Los Peñascales dam, in which the owner of the dam transferred it to the City Council in exchange for canceling an outstanding debt of 13,576 euros, and in which 600,000 euros of public money have already been invested in maintenance.
In the case of the Miraflores de la Sierra dam, the owner, the City Council of the aforementioned town, does not have a director of exploitation, nor an emergency plan, nor does it carry out any maintenance on the infrastructure, while a residential area grows at the foot of the dam. the dam and along the banks of the Guadalix River.
In these cases, local institutions usually hide from their neighbors the obligation they undertake to face the inevitable and costly removal of these facilities in the future. For this reason, city councils tend to exaggerate the ecological values of these reservoirs or the importance of their use for the fight against forest fires.
Also surprising is the attitude of the CHT, which has been facilitating with its resolutions the maintenance of these abandoned river barriers, as is the case of the Aulencia River dam, a true deposit of toxic sludge. While the rest of the Hydrographic Confederations are restoring river sections by removing a few hundred weirs and barriers.
Of the 171,000 barriers in Spain, the CHT has only removed two weirs during the last two years in the entire Tagus basin, none in the Community of Madrid despite the fact that there are rivers, such as the Tajuña, with a river barrier for every kilometer of river, most of them abandoned for years.
The removal of river barriers is an important river restoration tool and a legal obligation that must be carried out as a priority by the concession holders, and that must be promoted by the basin organizations (the CHT, in the case of the Community of Madrid ) to improve the ecological quality of water bodies and achieve the quality objectives of the Water Directive.
The collectives, ARBA, Jarama El Soto Ecologist Association, Ecologists in Action of the Community of Madrid, GRAMA, Jarama Vivo and Liberum Natura They require the CHT to comply with its obligations to conserve, recover and restore channels and improve the quality of water bodies in those sections affected by abandoned infrastructure.