Earth Equity News

No Rain in Spain. By Sue Lloyd Roberts, BBC, September 30, 2008."The Spanish newspapers have described it as 'Water Wars -- the rows over water which have broken out in Spain this year, a year which has seen the worst drought in forty years.Arguments over Spain's dwindling supplies of water have pitted region against region and raised tension between political parties. The crisis began back in April when Barcelona ran out of water and had to import tankers of drinking water from France. With Spain suffering badly from the impact of climate change, the main political parties are divided as to how to cope with the problem in the longterm. The left wing government, the PSOE [Spanish Socialist Workers' Party], believe the answer is to build more desalination plants. Spain already has more than 900, the biggest number outside the Middle East. The main opposition party, the Partido Popular [People's Party], believes that the answer is to transfer water from provinces, like Aragon, where the River Ebro regularly floods its banks, to the parched areas which border the Mediterranean."