The delegate of the Government in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, accompanied by the Commissioner for Reconstruction, José María Ángel, has made an assessment of the actions of the Government of Spain that are underway for the reconstruction of the province of Valencia after the dana. At the moment, according to the delegate, “the Government is working on more than 1,400 actions to make the reconstruction of Valencia a reality”. “This government is not going to close for vacation and is going to accelerate a reconstruction that is going at a great pace. We will continue to be next to the people. We are going to arrive in September with a certainty: with the advanced emergency works and the infrastructures recovered, before the rains of autumn”, he added.
Thus, Barnabas pointed out that this road map is guaranteed “through important injections of money that the other administrations, municipalities and Generalitat, we can all continue working together at a great pace”. “The Government of Spain has allocated more than 3 billion euros to the Generalitat to cover the extraordinary expenses of the dana through the FLA Dana. It has also received 39.9 million euros from the advance from the EU Solidarity Fund,” said the government delegate.
The delegate has reviewed the actions of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, which has launched with an investment of more than 220 million euros 570 actions along the Júcar Hydrographic Demarcation.
This body - as the delegate said - has prioritized the most important actions, which allow "to guarantee the supply of urban water to the entire metropolitan area of Valencia (Canal Júcar-Turia), of Villar del Arzobispo and of the irrigators of more than 24,500 hectares of the Main Channel of the Camp del Turia". Likewise, action is being taken in those initiatives, which “guarantee the safety of the population in the face of future episodes of large avenues with actions such as the extraction of sludge and repair of damages in the Forata dam, the restoration and reconstruction of the Poyo ravine and the repair of damages in waterways, such as in the Bajo Júcar or in the entire lower stretch of the Turia River”.
Barnabas has pointed out that all these actions “are currently in progress or at different levels of progress”. The delegate also recalled the 15 million euros allocated by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge for the forest hydrological restoration of the Albufera or the 30 million euros for the restoration of wetlands.
On the one hand, the Ministry of Agriculture, through the SEIASA, has actions initiated in 105 municipalities, about 950 kilometers of repaired roads, more than 225 kilometers in repaired ditches and more than 1,300 plots in which action has been taken. Likewise, Bernabé recalled that last Friday the Government of Spain already published a first list “with more than 43 million euros in aid to 4,561 farmers with damage to their farms by the dana”.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has allocated 380 million euros to the recovery of mobility in affected areas. Thus, repairs have been carried out on 37 structures in 12 municipalities for a total of 39.3 million euros. Almost EUR 158 million has been allocated for road repairs; EUR 192 million for the recovery of railway tracks and EUR 12.5 million for the alternative transport plan.
As the delegate recalled, the dana initially caused 160 kilometers of the State Highway Network to be cut off from traffic. Since November 23rd, all the sections are already open to traffic. “The most emblematic work,” he said, “that was provisionally recovered in about 12 days and in which work continues to recover total normality, is the bypass of the A7.” In the railway sector, 225 km of the conventional rail network and around 150 km of high speed were affected. The High Speed Line recovered its service on November 14.
In the Local Area Network, the five lines suffered affectations, with the C3 line being the most affected. The alternative transport plan was established from 13 November for the services of the C1, C2 and C3 lines of the València Commuter Centre. The services of the C1 and C2 commuter lines have been fully recovered, and an alternative bus transport plan for the C3 line in the Aldais-Utiel section is still in place.
As for the performances in localities, 6 bridges and 3 walkways have been rebuilt in Picanya and Paiporta. In addition, actions have been completed in runways and lower passes of Aldaia and collaboration agreements have been signed with the municipalities of Manises and Ribarroja de Turia.
In terms of housing, SEPES has purchased 26 homes, while 150 families have been rehoused in SAREB homes. Since the dana, 207 homes of the SAREB have been adapted, to which must be added 98 more that are currently being adapted. In addition, about 9.5 million euros have been invested in 75 agreements with the local entities affected by the dana to elaborate, update or expand the Local Action Plans of the Spanish Urban Agenda, which prioritize concrete actions.
For its part, the Ministry of Territorial Policy has already financed 211 projects, some of them already completed, with an investment of more than 284 million euros, from which 45 municipalities of the province of Valencia and the Diputación have benefited. These actions carried out by the municipalities represent 17% of the 1,720 million euros in aid granted by the Ministry.
In terms of aid, the resources mobilized by the Government reach 16.6 billion euros.