The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, assured this Thursday that "the efforts made" by him and the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Sovereignty of the Government of the Canary Islands, Narvay Quintero, "have paid off" and have made Lanzarote "recover funding of 14 million euros for agricultural irrigation in the municipalities of Tinajo and Teguise".
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, signed this Thursday at the headquarters of the Government Delegation in Lanzarote with the president of the State Mercantile Society of Agricultural Infrastructures, S.A. (SEIASA), Francisco Rodríguez Mulero, the addendum to the agreement that includes the modernization works of the Plan for improving efficiency and sustainability in irrigation, which represents an investment of 24 million euros for agriculture in the northeast area of Lanzarote.
According to the current government group of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, formed by the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party, in a press release, this money "had been lost because the previous Island Corporation had not responded to the requirements for signing the aforementioned agreement".
The regional president has taken advantage of this signing to ensure that: "We have not stopped insisting for a minute to the Government of the Canary Islands and the Ministry of Agriculture to recover that funding of 14 million euros for a work demanded for many years by farmers and ranchers".
In addition, Betancort has accused that "the negligence" of the previous government "has been very serious, but now we are in the phase of providing solutions to the urgent needs of our farmers and ranchers and this agreement that is signed today is a great step in that direction".
The president of the Island Institution has also thanked "the effective mediation for the signing of this agreement by the senator for the Autonomous Community and the national deputy of the Canarian Coalition, Cristina Valido".
The work will allow irrigating more than 1,300 cultivable hectares in Tinajo and Teguise
The project includes a modular seawater desalination plant by reverse osmosis for a maximum production of 3,600 cubic meters per day. It will be located next to the current EDAR Northeast of Lanzarote, known as La Santa treatment plant, in the municipality of Tinajo.
The work will allow irrigating more than 1,300 cultivable hectares, compared to the just over 200 hectares that are currently cultivated, which means multiplying the cultivated space by six, and will be formed by two independent desalination modules in self-consumption regime through wind energy, water tank, pumping equipment and impulsion pipe, irrigation network and tank in the area of El Cuchillo and the irrigation network of the Tinache pond.
The signing ceremony of the agreement between the Ministry and SEIASA was attended by the president of the Cabildo and island Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, Oswaldo Betancort; the general director of Agriculture of the Government of the Canary Islands, Javier Gutiérrez Taño; the Minister of Water of Lanzarote, Domingo Cejas; the Minister of Territorial Planning and Territorial Policy of the Island Council, Jesús Machín, and the island director of the General State Administration in Lanzarote, Pedro Viera.
The works of this agreement, for which the central government has an allocation of 560 million euros at the state level, are included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Economy (PRTR), and the agricultural irrigation works for the northeast area of the island, in the municipalities of Tinajo and Teguise, become part of phase III of this agreement.
"Lanzarote lost the opportunity to sign the agreement with SEIASA in phase II because the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the Water Consortium did not respond in a timely manner to the requirements made by the Government of the Canary Islands for the signing, which in practice meant not being able to have those more than 14 million for the works of the La Santa treatment plant that came to cover the needs of the agricultural field in the municipalities of Tinajo and Teguise, currently the most affected by the lack of water for irrigation," laments the Minister of Water, Domingo Cejas.
According to the nationalists, "María Dolores Corujo lost the funding for not attending to the requirements." The BOE of July 21, 2022 published the Resolution of the General Directorate of Rural Development, Innovation and Agri-Food Training that included the Agreement with SEIASA for the modernization works of irrigation included in the PRTR that is executed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food through the company SEIASA.
In the case of the works in Lanzarote, it was planned that the aforementioned agreement would be signed by the Water Consortium, in which the Cabildo and the seven municipalities participate. On December 30, 2022, the Board of Directors of SEIASA approved the Regulatory agreement for the financing and construction, delivery, reception and environmental monitoring of the modernization and consolidation works of the irrigation systems of the Water Consortium of Lanzarote, in the northeast area, municipalities of Tinajo and Teguise. That same day, the Water Consortium of Lanzarote was informed, a copy was sent to them and they were requested to send the drafts of the Annexes as soon as possible, according to the current Government Group.
To conclude, the nationalists highlight that "after several efforts made by the general directorate of Agriculture with the heads of the Cabildo of Lanzarote of the previous legislature, with the management of the Water Consortium and with the Ministry of Agriculture of the Cabildo and "not obtaining any positive result", according to the information of the Government of the Canary Islands, the presidency of SEIASA sent on May 8, 2023 an official letter to the presidency of the Water Consortium, which was held by the socialist María Dolores Corujo, requesting the documentation requested in December 2022, giving them a period of ten days. Finally, there was no response and the Agreement with SEIASA for the execution of the work could not be signed".
