Row over Balsa del Sapo pumping station

EL EJIDO council has criticised the regional government’s refusal to regard the Balsa del Sapo pumping station as an emergency.

This was highly irresponsible, the council claimed, considering the difficulties experienced by the owners of flooded properties.

The wetlands’ water levels would continue to rise, predicted Manuel Gomez Galera, councillor for Agriculture and the Environment.  It was serious when a town like Las Norias with its 9,000 population was constantly threatened by flooding, he said.  “Hundreds of growers can’t plant produce because greenhouses are completely under water and basic services like drainage are regularly collapsed.”

El Ejido council wrote to the regional government on October 17, asking for the new pumping station to be treated as an emergency. The Environment department rejected the suggestion, said Gomez Galera, although in June Sonia Rodriguez, the government’s provincial delegate, assured the mayor, Francisco Gongora, that work could begin in September.

Rodriguez now insisted on putting it up for tender, although rain posed a constant threat. “Even if the established deadlines are maintained, the station would not be finished before June,” Gomez Galera warned.

The Balso del Sapo issue was one of the province’s most serious problems he said, and possibly Anducia’s too.