The government delegate in Galicia, Pedro Blanco, and the president of the Mi｟｠ -Sil Hydrographic Confederation, José Antonio Quiroga, highlighted the work done by this body to alleviate the needs of the Galician municipalities, in which it has invested more than 60 million euros. The two representatives held a meeting in the Government Delegation in which they evaluated the improvements made by the Government in the Mi｟｠Sil basin.
“These actions, carried out by the Government through the Hydrographic Confederation, underline their municipalist vocation as most of them sit in small concellos, with which the Confederation collaborates to improve its basic public services, such as sanitation or the recovery of river spaces for citizens,” said the government delegate.
In this line, Pedro Blanco recalled specific cases, such as that of Sarria, which modernized its sanitation through 3.5 million euros from the CHMS, or that of Calvos de Randín, where water purification was improved with an investment of 250,000 euros. The Confederation works in practically all municipalities in the provinces of Lugo and Ourense, as well as in the south of Pontevedra, such as A Cañiza, Vilalba, Chantada, Monforte, Xinzo de Limia or Tomiño.
In total, the CHMS invested 62.7 million euros in the Galician municipalities of the Mi｟｠ -Sil basin during the last years, of which 44.6 million euros were allocated to hydraulic public works and more than 18 million euros to environmental improvements of the waterways, which made it possible to recover river areas for the citizens and improve the water resources in many municipalities.
Long-term management against climate change
At the meeting, the delegate and the president of the Confederation agreed on the commitment to the responsible management of water resources, which is transferred to the current Hydrological Plan of the Demarcation, which will be in force until 2027. One of the objectives of this planning is to anticipate the effects of climate change on water management.
Pedro Blanco insisted on the need to address this impact already, since the recent and increasingly daily data “are data that concern us and that oblige us to put ahead a responsible management of water and the other resources associated with it”. In that sense, he valued the work of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, which promotes the “green transformation” of many rural concellos of Galicia.