Sau lake fish sacrificed to preserve drinking water

0

On average, Spanish reserves are at only 28% of their capacity, compared to an average of 72% over the past ten years, according to the latest national hydrological bulletin. Because the lack of rain, which affects the whole of Europe, does not only date from this winter, nor even from the one before. It has been two and a half years since the rivers and groundwater are not sufficiently fed.

Six million people, 224 municipalities

On February 28, the Catalan government decreed the “state of exception”, to reinforce the restriction measures of the drought plan activated in October 2021. Six million inhabitants are concerned, 224 municipalities – mainly around Barcelona and Girona, in the area of ​​the basin of the Ter and Llobregat rivers – where everyone must reduce their consumption.

Ithe use of water for agricultural purposes is reduced by 40%, that for industrial purposes by 15%; the watering of parks and gardens (public and private) becomes prohibited and water can only be used to keep trees alive – provided that it is used drop by drop or using watering cans. It is still forbidden to clean the streets with drinking water.

According to the local minister for climate action, for “reverse the current scenario” “50 liters of rain per square meter would have to fall every day for four months“.

Empty Sau Lake

Finding water is like looking for gold, it leads to doing the impossible! In Barcelona, ​​the seawater desalination plant is running at full speed, but that won’t be enough. To the north of the town, there is an artificial lake, Lac de Sau, the reservoir of a dam which was formed in the 1960s and engulfed an entire village. Before, you could just see the top of the bell tower protruding from the surface. Since this summer, the waters have dropped so much that you can see it all – it has become a tourist attraction.

The lake is now only at 10% of its capacity, its lowest level in more than 30 years. While it is filled with carp, zander, catfish and also invasive exotic species, introduced underground over the years. In total, about ten species.

60 tons of fish to gut

If the level continues to drop, the lower layers of water risk mixing with the mud, but above all the fish will die of asphyxiation, decompose and make the water unfit for consumption.

The Catalan Water Agency (ACA) therefore wants to empty the lake of its 60 tonnes of fish, then transfer the water to another reservoir, that of Susqueda. Already in 2005, fishermen brought to the site had managed to take around fifteen tonnes of fish.

Five fishing boats must be brought from the shore to collect the fish on the chain. They will be entrusted to a company specializing in the processing of biomass, which will transform them into oil for biofuel and fertilizer.

Fish processed into fertilizer

The measure makes the animal rights defenders who demonstrated last week scream: they believe that the measure comes too late and that we could have imagined a plan to save the fish rather than “exterminate them”. They denounce “the biggest massacre of fish in Europe”. “Animals are the first to suffer from drought“writes Aïda Gascon, from the AnimaNaturalis association.

Response from the authorities: no choice. There is still enough in Lake Sau to supply a million households for three months. “We can’t afford to waste even a single liter of water” says the Catalan government’s climate action minister.


source site-23