The PP requested information from the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ) for the DANA investigation commission in the Valencia City Council on the maintenance and cleaning actions carried out in the channels. Since the DANA catastrophe, the popular have attacked the CHJ for its alleged inaction in the face of the proliferation of invasive canes. The images of thousands of reeds washed away by the floods on October 29 led to a wide variety of hypotheses about the cleaning of the channels and ravines and their impact in the event of a flood. However, an official document signed by the Minister of Environment, Infrastructure and Territory, the popular Vicente Martínez Mus, recognized just two and a half months before the DANA that the cleaning of the invasive reeds not only concerns the CHJ, it is also jurisdiction of the Generalitat Valenciana.
In response to a question from socialist deputy Rosario Navalón, to which elDiario.es has had access, Carlos Mazón’s Executive Minister stated that the General Directorate of the Natural and Animal Environment carries out actions “started in 2008” to “the control of invasive exotic flora and fauna species that cause the most serious negative impacts on biodiversity in the Valencian Community.” Martínez Mus stated in his response on August 14 that his department is in charge of “habitat restoration, such as the elimination of reed beds and their replacement with native riparian forests.” The councilor referred to the ”restoration actions of river habitats” being carried out in areas such as the middle course of the Albaida River, a Site of Community Interest (SCI), and in the Turia Natural Park, at the height of ”several municipal areas “.
It also announced that “other similar actions will be launched” in the Mijares River, in the SCIs of the Rincón de Ademuz and Gorgos rivers, and in the Special Protection Areas for Birds (SPA) of Alto Turia and Sierra. of Negrete.
Vicente Martínez Mus explained that the amount allocated for 2025 for the control of invasive species “will be specified in the budgets of the Generalitat Valenciana for the next year”, still pending debate and approval after its interruption as a result of DANA.
The same autonomous department recognized the same morning as DANA in an official document, signed by a senior official and revealed by this newspaper, that the monitoring of rivers and ravines was also within its competence. The general director of Natural and Animal Environment, Luis Gomis Ferraz, stated that the environmental agents of the Generalitat, among others, are also in charge of “monitoring flows in rivers, ravines, regulation systems and flood zones”, as indicated in the Special Flood Plan.
The same general directorate, in its last annual report on actions to control invasive species, signed last October and posted on the Internetexplains that the species to whose control “the greatest effort has been dedicated” in “marshes, rivers and boulevards” is the common reed (Arundo donax). Throughout the Valencian territory, during 2023, 740 days of Natura 2000 brigades were used specifically for the control of canes.
The technical report highlights the actions of the brigades in matters of “cane field control”, in addition to the “river bank restoration” actions. Three of the four projects (for an amount of 4.4 million euros) focus on the Turia Natural Park, one of them in the municipality of Quart de Poblet, affected by DANA.
The PSPV asks Mazón to “stop spreading hoaxes”
The spokesperson for the PSPV-PSOE in the Valencian Courts, Jose Muñoz, has disfigured the head of the Consell for “having settled into a permanent lie, deceiving the Valencians to try to cover up his lack of management of the tragedy” and has stated that “it is time that Mazón stops spreading hoaxes and gets to work so that the Valencian Community can face recovery as soon as possible.”
Furthermore, Muñoz recalled that “it was the Ministry of the Environment itself who had to deny Mazón and recognized that cleaning the ravines is the responsibility of the Generalitat.”
The socialist trustee has demanded that the PP “take the situation we are experiencing seriously and urgently dismiss Mr. Mazón as president of the Generalitat Valenciana.” “He cannot continue for a minute at the Palau,” he added.
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