The regional Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, José Luis Aguirre, has announced that at the beginning of 2024 the conditioning and improvement works of the irrigation hydraulic infrastructures will begin in the municipalities of San Fulgencio and Orihuela, also affecting Crevillente and Catral, with a budget of 4,164,310.94 euro.
José Luis Aguirre has highlighted the work that will be carried out to make the irrigation of 22,705 irrigators more efficient in an agricultural area of 27,110 hectares and that will prevent water losses of approximately 45 million cubic metres per year and that will revert to the crops themselves.
Regarding this, Aguirre added that “although the Valencian Community has one of the most efficient irrigation systems in the world, the weather conditions force us to deepen the maximum use of water and, to do so, the Ministry will always be with the irrigators”.
The work will be carried out on the first irrigation elevation of Levant, Marge Esquerre, in the municipality of San Fulgencio; from the partition drain in the towns of Crevillente and Catral, and from the Alquible drain in Orihuela.
In detail, in the main channel and first irrigation elevation of Llevant, the works consist of the channelisation and covering, the installation of automatic roughing sluices and the conditioning of the pumping installation of the first elevation.
In the drainage of the partition, the regrowth of the floor and crowning of the walls and the interior lining of these will be carried out.
With regard to the Alquibla ditch, the construction of a 24-metre-long passage will be carried out, to replace the existing reinforced concrete passage in very poor condition, and the reconstruction of 37 metres of the canal drain, upstream and downstream, of the new step.
These works are part of the action that the Ministry is carrying out to repair the damage to the irrigated areas affected by the DANA of 2019 in Baix Segura (the Vega Renhace plan), of which more than 25 million have already been executed, as negotiated and implemented by the previous administration.
