“I had never seen that here.” This sentence often loses its meaning after being repeated for months in the face of the consequences of the long drought that has hit a large part of the Iberian Peninsula. But in this case, the one who pronounces them is not just anyone and we are not anywhere. Arturo de Inés, 93, is perched on a huge granite rock on the edge of the vast arid ravine that has become the Almendra reservoir, straddling the Spanish provinces of Zamora and Salamanca, a stone’s throw away from Portugal.
Born well before the inauguration of the dam in 1970, he has been, for more than forty years, the mayor of Villaseco de los Reyes, a village of just over 300 inhabitants, and the president of the community of municipalities of Cabeza de Horno, which manages the drinking water supply for 107 localities. As many villages are worried today, as the level of the Almendra dam has dropped – at the beginning of October, it was only filled to 25% of its capacity.
On the Portuguese side, Helena Barril, the mayor of Miranda do Douro (6,000 inhabitants), shares these fears. The urban supply, which depends on the Douro River, is guaranteed for the time being, even if the drop in flow translates into an increase in impurities which risks damaging the pumping stations. But the situation is tense for the breeders of the region, who, faced with the drying up of the water points, have had to start giving their cattle water from the urban network.
Indignation without borders
The last week of September, says Mayor Arturo de Inés, the level of the dam managed by [la multinationale énergétique espagnole] Iberdrola collapsed almost overnight:
“The people of Iberdrola called us to tell us that they were no longer going to be able to guarantee the distribution, because the lake was sinking a lot and the water had become cloudy.”
The hydrological year – which begins after the month of lowest water and runs from 1is October to September 30 – was about to end, and Spain was about to proceed with the releases foreseen by its obligations under the Albufeira Convention, signed in 1998.
This international treaty fixes the annual volumes that Portugal must receive from Spain in order to