Spanish Desert May Be "Orchard Of Europe

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31836, 14 November 1968, Page 6

Spanish Desert May Be "Orchard Of Europe

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) MADRID. General Franco’s Government is poised to start its most ambitious public works project since the 193639 civil war, aimed at converting the deserts of south-eastern Spain into the “orchard of Europe.” Work will begin soon on a mammoth project to channel 132,000 m gallons of water a year from the River Tagus, in central Spain, to droughtstriken regions around Murcia and Alicante, 162 miles south. The Government approved the plan, called the TagusSegura Project, at a recent Cabinet meeting. The energetic, big-thinking public works Minister, Mr Federico Silva Munoz, has already invited tenders for the construction and installation of pumps, tunnels and canals to channel the water. The water —enough to supply a city with a population of almost four million people—will be used to irrigate 494.000 acres of fertile soil which have remained parched and barren for centuries. The project is far more ambitious than Spain’s famed "Badajoz Plan,” whicn General Franco launched in 1952 to irrigate and develop 275,000 acres in the impoverished regions of Western Spain. First Stage It Is the first stage of Mr Munoz’s massive scheme to use surplus water from the regions of northern Spain to supply sunbaked areas in the south, many of which suffer from chronic water shortages. In the impoverished regions around the Segura River, which the new project will develop, some areas have been without rain for 18 years. The growth of population and

industry Is exhausting water supplies, and the area of irrigated land shrinks each year. This summer, a prolonged drought in south-east Spain emphasised the urgency of the problem, leaving empty reservoirs, and forcing cuts in water supplies. Unofficial estimates have put the damage to crops at $14.3m and unemployment in the region is rising. Two Harvests

But in narrow belts along the banks of the Segura and Mundo Rivers, among the barren hills of Murcia province, rich crops of peaches and apricots, lemons, tomatoes, onions and maize still grow, producing two harvests a year, the first two months before other Mediterranean countries.

It is this which has encouraged General Franco’s Government to transform the region into what they hope will be the “California of Europe," able to flood the European market with top quality fruit and vegetables well before their foreign rivals. , Until now the sun-baked hills have, been used for making “Wild West” films, and even for desert scenes in the colour spectacular “Lawrence of Arabia.”

The estimated cost of the scheme is sB3m during the first four years and a half, but this is only the cost of delivering the water from near Madrid to the Talave reservoir about 63 miles from the Mediterranean coast. Twelve Years

The second stage will be to boost the capacity of the channel by another 88,000 m gallons a year to 220,000 m gallons, and to construct a costly network of irrigation channels.

This is expected to take another seven years, bringing the total estimated time for completion of the project to 12 years. Work on the first stage will start late this year, or early in 1969.