The Monar irrigation ditch will cease to be in a few years the main irrigation infrastructure of the Hortes de Santa Eugènia and Salt. The councilor of Climate Action of Girona, Sergi Cot, advanced this change during an open meeting with neighbors held in the auditorium of the Centre Cívic de Santa Eugènia la Marfà, where he exposed that the proposal on which they are working with the Generalitat passes through replacing the current system with a canalization and reserving for the irrigation ditch a role above all patrimonial and environmental.
Cot explained that, while the definitive solution is being defined, small works are now being carried out in Monar to try to alleviate some of the current irrigation problems. Even so, he made it clear that "this is not the structural solution" and placed the change of model in a horizon of several years.
A new irrigation system for the orchards
The proposal put forward for Santa Eugènia and Salt foresees that effective irrigation be done through a canalization that runs below or next to the séquia. The intention is to preserve the Monar for its historical, social, and neighborhood value, but with a significant reduction in flow. That lower flow would allow maintaining it more as a biological corridor than as a main tool for irrigating the orchards.
The councilor defended that this transformation would allow for better planning of water distribution and the implementation of a more automated and also smarter system. The measure, however, will not be immediate. Cot recalled that the definitive solution depends on the Generalitat and that the City Council has been waiting for months for the project to be finalized, both in the technical part and in the pending procedures.
"We are going to four or five years" - Sergi Cot, councilor of Climate Action of Girona
A lawsuit from the community of irrigators
At the meeting, Joan Vidal, former president of the irrigation community of Salt and Santa Eugènia, also spoke, who framed the change as a demand from the community itself. Vidal recalled that the water that circulates through the canal and is used for irrigation is subject to the payment of a fee, and defended the need to move towards formulas that allow for a much more efficient use of irrigation.
In this regard, he maintained that the future necessarily involves pressurizing the system, as has already been done in other areas of Baix Ter. According to him, in those areas water consumption has been reduced by 80% after modernization investments. He also warned that, after years of drought and with the forecast that this scenario will repeat itself, maintaining the current model does not offer a path.
"If it is not pressurized, nothing will be obtained" - Joan Vidal, former president of the community of irrigators of Salt and Santa Eugènia
The municipal forecast places the transformation in a period of four or five years, always pending that the Generalitat closes the technical proposal. Until then, the Monar canal will continue functioning with punctual actions, awaiting a fundamental change that aims to maintain its presence in the surroundings of Santa Eugènia and Salt, but no longer as the main axis of agricultural irrigation.