The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, through the State Mercantile Society of Agrarian Infrastructures (Seiasa), has today concluded, in Huesca, three agreements for the water and energy modernization of 13,704 hectares of the irrigated area of the Riegos del Alto Aragón, in the province of Huesca, in which 68,650,000 euros are to be invested (VAT not included). The agreements, signed with the communities of irrigators of Lanaja, La Campaign and Almudévar, bring together a total of 1,564 irrigators.
The three projects include the construction, among other infrastructures, of regulating ponds that increase the volume of water available for irrigation and the installation of photovoltaic solar plants that will use clean energy, reducing polluting emissions and costs to the farms.
The “Project of integral modernization of the Community of Irrigators of Lanaja (Huesca)” has a budget of 45,700,000 euros (VAT not included) and will benefit 656 irrigators and 4,015 hectares in the municipalities of Lanaja, Sariñena, Poleñino, Lalueza and Albierre.
The action includes the construction of a total of four ponds, a pumping station equipped with a photovoltaic solar plant, the replacement of the current ditches by networks of pressure pipes to the plots, and an automation and remote control system for the integral and centralized management of the distribution of water and consumption throughout the irrigated area.
With the “Raft Project in the Community of Irrigators “The Campaign” in the municipal areas of Barbastro and Castejón del Puente (Huesca)”, the aim is to increase the volume of bottled water in order to have a more effective regulation and improve the management of irrigation.
To this end, it is planned to build a new raft attached to the existing one, a new intake pipe from the Selgua Canal for filling, a filtration system and a water volume measurement system. The investment amounts to 6,500,000 euros (VAT not included) and the modernized area will reach 5,724 hectares corresponding to 391 irrigators.
The “Energy Optimization Project of the Irrigation Community of Almudévar (Huesca)”, has an investment of 16.45 million euros (VAT not included), aimed at the construction of two new rafts that will improve the regulation and management of the irrigated area, as well as the installation of propulsion pipes from the pumping stations, already executed in the modernization completed in 2009.
The assembly will be completed with a photovoltaic solar park, connection pipes between networks already executed and the integration of the new infrastructures into the management program already available to the Community of Irrigators.
This modernization will mean improvements for a total of 517 irrigators who grow on an area of 3,965 hectares in Almudévar, Gurrea de Gállego and Alcalá de Gurrea.
These actions, which must be completed in 2026, are part of a new phase, called Phase III, of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Government of Spain, within the “Plan for the improvement of efficiency and sustainability in irrigation” promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture, and are co-financed by Next Generation funds of the European Union.
340 MILLION INVESTMENT IN ARAGON
With 571 million euros, Huesca is the province that has received the most investment from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, through Seiasa, in the last two decades in the field of irrigation modernization. With this objective, this ministry is planning an investment of 340.09 million euros (VAT not included) for the Autonomous Community of Aragon.