Antonio Morales affirms that enough water has been stored to guarantee the agricultural seasons until the summer of 2024
The Highway services, in coordination with Civil Protection and the city councils, work to return the damaged roads to operation.
The president of the Cabildo values the coordination between the different administrations
The president of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, Antonio Morales, stated today that the passage of Storm Hermine left 2,7 million cubic meters of water in the Gran Canaria dams, which represent “a benefit for the Island, by providing water to the aquifers and soaking our parched lands, which will facilitate crops in the coming weeks, and by incorporating a significant amount of water into the public dams and reservoirs of our Island,” and without any personal harm having been caused. The president of the Cabildo made these assessments at the press conference to take stock of the passage of the Hermine through the island territory, in which he was accompanied by the vice president and counselor of Public Works, Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility, Miguel Ángel Pérez; and by the head of the Ministry of Primary Sector and Water, Miguel Hidalgo.
In his speech, Morales stated that the water collected on the Island has been “the best news of the year, since it is the first month of September in our history in which a rain with such an amount of water occurs, also coinciding with a prolonged drought and with dams at minimum levels,” he stressed. In this sense, he explained that records of more than 160 liters per square meter have been recorded, on the two most intense days of Hermine. Specifically, in the area of the large dams of the Cabildo (south/southwest), the average precipitation has been about 80 mm; while in the west (La Aldea), summit (Tejeda/Artenara/San Mateo), Las Palmas and Telde/Ingenio more than 120 mm have been recorded, especially in the strip from west to east, from La Aldea to Telde.
Therefore, “the agricultural land will not need irrigation for two or three weeks,” Morales said. “The forest areas have been well watered, after years of low rainfall, and the good functioning of containment and channeling infrastructures built in ravines to stop erosion has been verified,” he stressed.
The president emphasized that “the water has fallen continuously, but without waterspouts, soaking the earth and filling cisterns and tanks, and has also reached the dams and reservoirs, in which it is estimated that they have been stored in recent days. 2.712.212 cubic meters, a 6% increase in its total volume.” Specifically, he explained that the contributions of water have been 1.970.440 cubic meters in private dams, which represents an increase of 8% of the total volume, and 741,772 cubic meters in public dams, a 3% increase. of its total volume. All this implies that there has been a 39% increase in relation to the water available before the storm.
At this time, the Island has 12 cubic hectometers of stored water, which exceeds the 11 cubic hectometers of annual consumption foreseen in the Hydrological Plan of Gran Canaria. “With the water we already had, we guaranteed the agricultural season until the summer of 2023 and now, with these rains, it is guaranteed until the summer of 2024, included,” said Morales. “The forecast is that this is the date on which we will have the water from Salto de Chira, since, once the desalination plant is finished in the summer of 2023 and the pumping at the end of that year or in the summer of 2024, we can guarantee the agricultural seasons ”.
In this regard, Miguel Hidalgo added that water continues to enter the island's dams and that it is expected to register some 500.000 more cubic meters, “which would mean that we would have more than three million cubic meters at the disposal of the farmers of Gran Canaria. ”, noted the Minister of Primary Sector and Water.
Resolve road damage
Regarding the situation of the roads, Antonio Morales specified that the large amount of water falling has forced the closure of 13 roads and highlighted how "the Highway services of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, in collaboration with Civil Protection and the services municipal authorities, have worked tirelessly and continue to do so at this time, to leave the island roads in good condition with great speed and effectiveness.”
It was Miguel Ángel Pérez who reported on these incidents, noting that the work of more than 450 people from the services of the Department of Public Works and Transport that he directs has made it possible for many problems on the roads to be addressed and solved on the fly. islands, “And right now, work continues to prepare the sections that have had to be closed due to landslides and as they are cleaned and properly conditioned, they will become operational,” he commented.
He stressed that situations have also occurred that will require emergency processing so that the roads recover their original state and cited the case of the closure of the right lane of the GC-1, heading south-Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, among kilometers 11,200 and 10,500, which will require the construction of a new wall 130 meters long, with an investment of 1,250 million euros.
It should be noted that all the information on the work being carried out on the roads appears detailed and updated on the different social media channels of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria.
Successful inter-institutional coordination
Finally, Antonio Morales highlighted the hard work carried out and the cooperation between the institutions to deal with this situation, since, since they became aware of the weather forecasts and the possible impact of the cyclone, the emergency services worked in unison. all administrations to analyze risk points, with the review and cleaning of spillways and channels; to inspect the ravines and drainage areas, with warnings and removal of vehicles and other obstacles that blocked the course of the waters; and to locate settlements of people at risk, with the removal of two camping areas at the mouth of ravines and some shanties in tunnels.
The president assured that a team of more than 600 people has been coordinated to resolve the incidents, with a special team to address the conditions that were going to occur, as they did, on the island roads. “The result has been that today we do not have to regret personal injuries and that the infrastructures, in general, have withstood rains of extraordinary dimensions,” he said.
Faced with this climatological phenomenon, Morales emphasized again that climate change “is a harsh reality that will affect island territories like ours more directly” and how the Gran Canaria Cabildo is working to combat it. “We are the first institution in the Canary Islands that has achieved a strategy for mitigation and adaptation to climate change, which has made the mayoral pact for the climate possible and which has developed a strategic plan with each municipality, taking into account the peculiarities of each local level,” he reflected. “We have always defended that inter-institutional coordination and citizen awareness is essential to confront these situations, and now it has worked,” he concluded.
