The excess of pesticides leaves 161 towns in Salamanca and Zamora without drinking water: “Nobody reports anything”

The grandmothers who take care of their granddaughters in the park or the kids who go out with their bikes in Monleras, a town in Salamanca with 200 inhabitants, cannot fill their bottles with tap water. Neither cook nor wash vegetables. And it’s not because of the drought. In the height of summer, water comes out, but it is not drinkable. This is how 161 towns of Salamanca and Zamora have been for more than two weeks, due to the excess of pesticides detected in the La Almendra reservoir, in Salamanca. The Ecologistas en Acción organization has denounced the presence of pesticides at levels higher than those admitted by law, while the Salamanca Provincial Council (PP) alleges a lack of time to adapt to the new European requirements for potability and water quality. The municipalities demand more information and for now they only receive jugs with drinking water and deposits that the firefighters bring them.

The origin of the problem is found in the La Almendra reservoir in Salamanca, which receives the riverbed of the Tormes river. As the Cabeza de Horno community, one of the administrative groupings of municipalities in the province of Salamanca, warned on July 20, an “excess of pesticides” has been detected in the water collected for purification, which “have their origin in the activity agriculture” of the area. Carolina Martín, president of Ecologistas en Acción in Salamanca and a resident of Monleras, criticizes the high volume detected of the metolachlor pesticide, prohibited by European legislation, and questions whether its finding in the province is due to “historical contamination” or because “it is keep using it uncontrollably.” Martín assures that “intensive agriculture” crops use these substances frequently to take care of the crops, which ends up contaminating groundwater and harming human consumption.

Current state of one of the bends of the Almendra reservoir between Monleras and Sardón de los Frailes, in Salamanca. Emilio Fraile

The Cabeza de Horno community has prohibited drinking water from the network in 140 towns in Salamanca and the Sayagua community recommends not doing so in 21 towns in Zamora. Health spokesmen of the Junta de Castilla y León (PP-Vox) allege that the competence to manage water depends on the municipalities. However, Ecologists in Action criticizes that the regional Administration ignores the problem. Pilar Sánchez, responsible for the Environment of the Diputación de Salamanca (PP), points out that “water is the same”, but “the demand has multiplied with the change in regulations”. The new legislation came into force at the beginning of 2023 and the problem jumped on July 20. “There is no time to adapt so quickly, the Administration is complex due to budgets and procedures, work is already underway to solve the problem,” says Sánchez, who defends that the Provincial Council has gone from spending around 300,000 euros on water to 1 ,3 million, and that a system of distribution of jugs and deposits has been developed by the populations.

The official argument outrages Carolina Martín: “What reasoning is that? The new decree establishes 0.03 micrograms of metolachlor authorized per liter and before it was 0.1 micrograms. That is that before they poisoned us with illegal substances and we did not know it ”. Fernando Rubio, socialist spokesman in the Charra Provincial Council and mayor of Juzbado, regrets that the change in parameters has been known for a long time without any prevention or surveillance of the waters. “Peaks in the presence of the toxin have been combined with which more has been demanded because they are highly harmful and carcinogenic products. It is not about creating alarm, but continued consumption is dangerous, they should control more what people throw into the fields,” says Rubio, who explains that some of the measurements that have been made to the water have given levels of 0.05 and 0.062 micrograms metolachlor. The representative of Ecologistas en Acción reproaches the “conformism” of many people in the area and the inaction of PP mayors, while the Socialists do have an impact on the problem. The councilor of Vitigudino (2,400 residents), Javier Muñiz (PSOE), censures the management of the authorities: “Nobody reports anything beyond that it is not drinkable, it is a serious issue and the deposits are useless, because the population is multiplying ”.

Bottles of water stacked in a store in the town hall of Monleras, Salamanca. Emilio Fraile

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The residents of this and other towns depend on deposits such as the one installed in a municipal premises. Gabriel Andrés and Esteban Patiño, 18, discover upon arrival that the tank has been emptied and they must wait for the firefighters to fill it up. The first is from Salamanca and the second, from Madrid, arrived to spend the holidays. Surprised by the water problem, he exclaims: “(In Madrid) you can’t imagine this happening (here)”. The boys return home to give their mother the bad news and come across a man carrying several empty jugs to fill.

“Is there any water left?” he asks, and when they shake his head, he storms off. He will have to wait until the afternoon, when the firefighters arrive to fill it in after the mayor’s notice.

The Monleras bar has been affected by the water restrictions in the area. Emilio Fraile

The situation also affects the bars in the area. In Vitigudino, the innkeeper Juan Manuel Hernández, 60, is desperate to cook or make coffee while the clientele “cannot hear concern”, he says, “people go through everything”. There are 10 days left for the town’s patron saint festivities, but a quick solution is not expected. In Monleras, much smaller, they suffer to serve a cortado because the carafe that they have attached to the machine does not have enough pressure to serve the orders well. Sari García, 57, says that this translates into many problems: they have run out of ice-making equipment, preparing the menus for the day requires the utmost care and you have to be aware of having full jugs on hand, as they empty about eight five liters a day. At least people are consoled with beers and wines in the sun on the patio, while she begs for progress: “The metallochlore in the nose doesn’t come down at all!”

The independent mayor of Monleras, Ángel Delgado, and his councilor Juanjo Delgado, aged 65 and 63, reflect on the problem: “The intensification of the agri-food industry against traditional models causes these problems, the intensive model implies exploiting more land and using more pesticides. They also regret the scant information received, without meetings to address the situation: “We are very far from where decisions are made.” It is enough to drive those roads between parched pastures and stoic holm oaks, with the La Almendra reservoir in low hours, to appreciate a strange image: vast orchards under strong irrigation systems.

Demetria Delgado gives water to her grandson in the main square of Monleras. Emilio Fraile

In the park where the children play, Josefa Agúndez, Clara de Arriba and Demetria Delgado, aged 87, 68 and 64, take care of the children, sitting in the sun. One of his grandsons approaches asking for water and, as on so many occasions these weeks, they offer him a bottle so he doesn’t use the fountains. Same situation when boiling food or washing tomatoes or potatoes. At least, they say, they can shower or scrub. Regarding the possible danger of drinking the water, Delgado affirms: “If you stop to think about it, you take it more seriously: this very summer we have been consuming it.” The women recognize the lack of combative spirit in these rural towns, something that for De Arriba, a habitual resident of Madrid, does not occur in the cities: “There they demand more and want their rights.”

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