More than thirty groups of Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Extremadura and the Community of Madrid, have coordinated to denounce and make visible “the bad state” of the Tagus River and the rest of the rivers in its basin. To do this, they have called a demonstration on March 25, in Toledo, taking advantage of the celebration of World Water Day.
Pervasive state of degradation
Among the convening groups are Ecologists in Action of the Community of Madrid, Ecologists in Action of Getafe, Ecologists in Action of Valdemoro, Ecologists in Action of Villaviciosa de Odón, the Platform for the rivers of Madrid and the Tagus River, the Ecologist Association of the Jarama the groveAssociation for the Recovery of the Autochthonous Forest (ARBA), Action Group for the Environment (GRAMA), the Regional Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Madrid (FRAVM) and the Madrid Public Water Network (RAPM).
River ecosystems have become in many cases “open sewers”, threatening public health and wildlife, “without the administrations responsible for river conservation acting”
The conveners, as reported in a press release, draw attention to the general “state of degradation” that the middle and lower courses of all the rivers of the Tagus basin. As they say, river ecosystems have become in many cases “open sewers”, threatening public health and wildlife, “without the administrations responsible for river conservation acting”.
Dirty and dead water channels
This “disregard” for the value of these important ecosystems and the opportunities they could offer to riverside towns is “unacceptable” for the conveners, who, according to they warn, despite the objectives of the Water Directive or national and regional regulations, the Madrid rivers and the Tagus “are dying”. “The images are gruesome: riverbeds clogged with waste, thousands of wipes hanging from the trees, collectors that release poorly treated wastewater“, denounce.
The management of the rivers is shared by several administrations and organizations, the Tagus Hydrographic Confederation (CHT); the Community of Madrid and the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha; the Canal de Isabel II; and the Ministry for Ecological Transition. All these administrations “due to the neglect of their functions”, in the opinion of the conveners, allow the rivers to become “channels of dirty and dead waters”.
The established ecological flows violate the legislation and the 2019 Supreme Court rulings, while their endowments are very scarce to recover the fluvial dynamics or prevent the deterioration of the rivers”
“The measures of the new Tagus Hydrological Plan result insufficient to achieve the good state of the water masses. The established ecological flows violate the legislation and the 2019 Supreme Court rulings, while their endowments are very scarce to recover the fluvial dynamics or prevent the deterioration of the rivers. In the case of the Tagus River, the established flows are at the service of a disproportionate, toxic, predatory and unsustainable agriculture,” they add.
In addition, they add, the Tagus River collects the poorly purified water that reaches it from the Madrid rivers, specifically the Jarama and Guadarrama that flow into it. “This contamination is aggravated due to the reduction in flow as a result of the Tagus-Segura transfer.”
To denounce this situation, more than twenty groups from Castilla-La Mancha, the Community of Madrid, Extremadura and Castilla y León have called a Demonstration in Toledo that will run between Plaza de Zocodover and the Alcántara bridge over the Tagus River.