Ecologistas en Acción invites to present allegations against the new project of the reservoir of Biscarrués, over the Gállego River because of its social, environmental, economical and cultural impacts. A model of allegation is provided.

The wish to regulate the middle course of the river Gállego (Galligo) dates back at the beginning of the century, although after several attempts to contribute with new resources to Riegos del Alto Aragón, irrigators did not applied the Hydrological Confederation of the Ebro River, a study of regulation that concluded in 1981, until 1978.

In the year 1987 the Hydrological Confederation of the Ebro River, presented the first project for the construction of the reservoir. In that project was gathered the flood in the town of Erés, a capacity of 192 hm3, and the occupation of a surface of 1000 hectares belonging to the municipalities of de Biscarrués, Santa Eulalia de Gállego and Murillo de Gállego.

The construction of the reservoir of Biscarrués-Mallos de Riglos is unacceptable in the current socioeconomic context. The high economic, social and environmental costs do not worth the possible profits that are expected to obtain at all.

The irrigations must necessarily go through a near future of modernization. It can not be accept Riegos del Alto Aragón to demand investments of hundred of thousands to dam more water that flood villages and landscapes and that get wasted because of some obsolete irrigation systems, between the most inefficient irrigation systems of Spain.

The society demand the preservation of great natural areas on which they can develop their leisure time. The surroundings of the reservoir of Biscarrués-Mallos de Riglos is one of them. Thousands of tourists would miss the opportunity of seeing the mallet dusk, the fall of a river of rough waters, and the exceptional landscape, prelude of the Alto Pirineo.
Now the Galliquea is threatened again, the New Draft 02/09, of the reservoir of Biscarrués, was published on the official state gazette (BOE), the 25th May 2009. As always, the difficulties that the administration set to know their plans are numerous and the affected town councils have not received any answer to their request about counting with the project, that can only be looked up in Zaragoza.

After a first reading of the Draft we denounce that they do not fulfilled the agreement of keeping the minimum flow in the river Gállego, because it flood one of the few stretch with flow, it does not respect the rough waters, because the bottom of the swamp reach above Murillo and devastates all the fields of Erés, flooding them and taking out the materials for the reservoir. Seeing the posed reservoir's planning and the auxiliary building works is a reservoir intended to be filled up and the complementary building works are planned to be suitable sooner or later for the construction of the first macro plan reservoir.
Ecologistas en Acción that encourage you to join this campaign, made by the coordinator of Biscarrués-Mallos de Riglos, presented in any public register before the 9th July, will present the appropriate statements to this project the statements that you would find in the enclosed file based on the following premises:

It is an unnecessary project. The increase on the need of water for irrigation is not justified. There is not a final definition of the surface of Riegos del Alto Aragón that can be irrigated. There is not a real analysis of the cultivated surface, the saline areas, and the introduced cultivation in a near future, the effects of the disappearance of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), etc. We do not know real needs. It starts from generous estimations as counts of the Gran Capitán. Besides, it consolidates important irrigation surfaces above the irrigated elevations and those can be considered doubtfully legal.

A part of the agricultural needs that we expect to satisfy are actually hydroelectric uses. We hope they do not include the request of Gran Scala, solar farms and other non-agricultural uses.

The supposed needs can be covered with the enlargement of the ancient and damaged Canal de Monegros and the previous and serious construction of the so-called side pools inside the irrigation system, for which they have promoted capacity for more than 1000 hectometres. Without its construction, the carrying out of any new building work in the Gállego River has no sense.

There are more reasonable and cheaper alternatives to the hypothetic need of water for irrigation, that of the modernization of its irrigations, the adjustment of resources and a real pricing system, not political, to prevent the excessive consuming.
The town of Erés is directly threatened. It is not directly destroyed but it cut its traditional communications, lengthen its displacements, floods its fields and isolates it.

It makes completely disappear the rough water's sport, which are the main economic driving force of the region and has repercussion in all the Alto Aragón. Lots of jobs have been eliminated, direct and indirect. It eliminated the using of little boats.

It drowns out the Magia de la Hoya de Huesca. The emblematic landscape of Galliguera and its mallets, with a clear impact in the green tourism, which is the second economic driving force of that area.

It destroys and denature a high percentage of the natural riversides of the river Gállego, severely transformed by breakwaters, gravel beds, bogs and disparagement of waters by irrigation dams and hydroelectric channels.

It infringes The Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60). It breaks the objective of achieving the good ecological state in the river Gállego. The regulation of floods and the ecological flows are simple excuses. The Hydrological Confederation of the Ebro River (HCE) is systematically breaking, with trivial excuses, in several stretches of the Ebro's basin.

It also infringes the Habitats Directive (DIRECTIVE92/43CEE). Besides it directly affects fauna species, catalogued by its interest on the European Union and the Autonomous Community of Aragón: European mink, otter and European turtle. The sport fishing is also affected.

It is an economic outrage, without a certified justification, which means an intolerable waste of public money, especially in a time of crisis.

It supposed an offense for a region that is been more than 20 years suffering the threatened of the construction of the reservoir. This Sword of Damocles has already hit its sustainable development.

It is a previous step for the construction of a bigger reservoir, which with the new Yesa, is the base of the transfer.