The mayor of Totana, Juan José Cánovas, the president of the Central Union of Irrigators Tajo-Segura, Lucas Jiménez, and the president of the Community of Irrigators of Totana, Felipe Andreo, today hung the banner of the 40th anniversary of the Tajo-Segura Transfer in the balcony of the town hall.
With this symbolic act, the City Council joins the network of municipalities that commemorates this infrastructure and has been held throughout the year 2019 in the provinces of Murcia, Almeria and Alicante.
The event was also attended by the Governing Board of the Central Union of Irrigators and the Community of Irrigators of Totana, which also celebrates its 40th anniversary, different representatives of some of the municipal groups of the Totanera Municipal Corporation , members of the agrarian unions implanted in this municipality and of the Association of Producers and Exporters of Fruits and Hotalizas of the Region of Murcia (Proexport).
Juan José has received the representatives of these entities in the Mayor's Office before proceeding to place the banner on the main façade of the consistorial building and stage this support at the gates of the Town Hall, in the Plaza de la Constitución.
Cánovas has affirmed that "in Totana we go hand in hand with our Community of Irrigators, supporting them and being the voice of their demands", adding that the Transfer is "an unrenounceable aqueduct, key for its social and economic benefits for the municipality and the Region "
Lucas Jiménez has referred to the unity around this hydraulic work launched in 1979, "that water comes from other regions to a region of the same country is something that benefits the entire Nation."
The president of Scrats has also highlighted the union "that all the political forces and citizens of the Region of Murcia, Alicante and Almeria have demonstrated in the defense of the Tajo-Segura Transfer, knowing the importance it has for the economy of all regions and the environment of these semi-desert zones ".
The banner placed this morning in the totanero municipal balcony, according to Lucas Jiménez, "says a lot because it speaks of unity, of the unity that we maintain Murcia, Alicante and Almeria, in the defense of something that we consider fair, such as the Tajo water , which is a basin that belongs to the country, to the Spanish State, and therefore, the inhabitants of Murcia, Alicante and Almeria have the right to be our basin, a deficit basin ".
This anniversary also coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Community of Irrigators of Totana.
Its president, Felipe Andreo has announced that this community organ will hold a program of activities next autumn, which will be presented in September, to commemorate its creation;
and considers that "the Transfer radically changed our life and has meant a before and after for the farmers and for all the residents of Totana".
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Tajo-Segura transfer, one of the main hydraulic engineering works in Spain.
This infrastructure connects the Bolarque reservoir (Tajo river) with the Talave reservoir (Mundo river), from this reservoir the post-transfer infrastructures that distribute the water to all irrigable areas are started.
The origins of the transfer go back to the year 1932, when the then Minister of Public Works, Indalecio Prieto, entrusted the engineer Manuel Lorenzo Pardo with the realization of a national plan for the use of water.
A year later, the 'National Plan for Hydraulic Works' was presented, which included the Tajo-Segura Transfer, but in the end it could not be carried out for various reasons.
The completion of the transfer was retaken with the Ministerial Order of July 30, 1966, which orders the drafting of the 'General Draft Joint Use of Hydraulic Resources of the Center and Southeast of Spain, Complex Tajo-Segura'.
Finally, in 1979, the first waters from the Tagus River reached the Segura basin.
What made it possible to ensure the supply of a population of more than two and a half million people and that the Spanish Levante became one of the largest areas of agricultural production in Europe.
The Community of Irrigators of Totana already placed a few months ago a similar banner on the facade of its building, located on Balsa Street.
