The Canal de Isabel II will install a Rain Simulator to be able to anticipate and study atmospheric phenomena such as floods, announced the Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Interior of the Community of Madrid, Carlos Novillo, this Friday at the Madrid Breakfasts. Europe Press.
Integrated into the Center of Excellence for purification and reuse technologies in the MECO WWTP, it will become a unique facility in Europe due to its magnitude and characteristics. This simulator allows you to reproduce the complete hyetograph of any type of rain to study its effect on the different sustainable urban drainage techniques. with a complete investment of 1.3 million euroshe has indicated.
Novillo explained that water security is a priority for the regional government, since the population increases by 115,000 inhabitants per year and we project up to 8 million in the next 10 years.
“Guaranteeing water consumption, its purification and the deployment of water infrastructure is the great challenge we face in our region. Therefore, through the Canal de Isabel II will make the biggest investment in hydraulic public works of the century”, he indicated.
Thus, with 3.2 billion in the next 5 years, The president of this public company has also promised that they will continue to renew supply networks, undertake more renovations of municipal sanitation, more regenerated water, the digitalization of the network and the pending works on the large treatment plants of the Madrid City Council, “which the Ministry has not wanted to face, as well as doubling the storm tanks that we have until now to protect ourselves from floods” and the announced Rain Simulator.
National Fire Law
In this line, after the DANA in ValenciaNovillo has stressed that we are facing “a change of cycle and we must adapt, the administrations, but also the citizens, often accustomed to living in a bubble of false security.”
“It is essential that they are aware of the risks that surround them, know the prevention mechanisms and early warning and know how to react in the face of the main emergencies in which they may be involved,” he noted.
The counselor recalled that 15 months ago Madrid received a red notice due to heavy rain, it had never happened and we activate the ES-Alert system a few hours before the time the phenomenon was announced.
“All of you will remember and I, believe me, I remember the hours that those of us who made that decision suffered and that of suspending an Atlético de Madrid soccer match, public activities and without falling a drop, until 9 p.m. where it began the unprecedented discharge of water throughout the southwest of Madrid that cost two lives in our region and destroyed 46,000 hectares of roads, houses, farms and collapsed 4 bridges,” he said.
At this point, Novillo has highlighted that in that emergency in the Community of Madrid, no one considered that this emergency could fall under municipal jurisdiction, “and that if they needed help the mayors would ask us for it.” It was activated hours before the warning began, level 2with the Community assuming the direction of the Plan.
“A month and a half later, I still can’t explain why the Spanish government did not activate level 3 on Tuesday night, as clearly established by the Law of the National Civil Protection System when an emergency affects several autonomous communities or exceeds the capacity of a regional administration. This omission of the duty to help and the lack of assumption of responsibility is inadmissible in a European country,” he reproached.
Novillo recalled that this Tuesday he was able to visit the ERCC (Emergency Response Coordination Center of the European Union), and after having suffered and experienced the terrible phenomena of a different nature that have been suffered in Spain in recent yearswith natural disasters such as DANAS, La Palma Volcano, forest fires, Covid, etc., “the need to review and reinforce our alert, emergency and civil protection systems at all levels has become evident.”
“The Community of Madrid with ERICAM and the army with the UME They are the only two teams certified in the European mechanism to participate in international disasters, but this is not enough and for all these reasons, we urge the central administration so that the government improves the coordination between administrations of emergency teams, carrying out the new Law on the coordination of national fire services and a system of national emergency modules, as well as automating the command and control mechanisms, the collection of data to predict and prevent phenomena, and the improvement in the issuance of warnings and alarms,” he stated.
For this reason, Carlos Novillo has proposed today, at the Madrid Breakfasts Europa Pressthe reactivation of the National Law on the Coordination of Fire Servicesthe creation of a State Secretariat for Emergencies, and the assignment of AEMET to the Ministry of the Interior, among other urgent measures.
“How were we going to receive help from European emergency services, like the French, if we did not activate the national coordination of the disaster, at level 3 and the enormous aid that we deployed in our own country could not even be organized and only the Community sent more than 700 troops). As with Covid, unfortunately this Government will not analyze what could have been done better,” he added.
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