Text: Dani Boix Masafret, Albert Ruhí Vidal y Sergi Solá.
The reservoirs of the middle river stretch and due to the excessive water transfer result in a thorough and severe change along the course of the river. It turns into two complete different rivers with two different problems: upstream because of the reservoirs and the pollution and downstream due to the lack in water flow.
The current intensive livestock farming performed in the local area of Osona entails a disproportionate water consumption and generates a huge amount of manure that the farming soil is not able to absorb. In a few years time the rural culture has been substituted by labour force exploitation and the breeding cycle of pigs has been reduced to the half by means of feeding them with synthetic compound feed. The traditional organic manure is no longer produced and instead of it farm slurry is made, which pollutes the underground aquifers. Even if the conversion manufacture processes takes place, the recovery of these underground aquifers will take decades.
The water transfer started in the sixties but it has been in the last decade when the great abuses have taken place. From1996 till 2007 the 75% of the volume of flow of the river has been transferred even ignoring the legislation in force and the commitments of the administration. This situation has resulted in a severe economical social and ecological impact. In fact for the last four years, those days in which the failure in keeping the minimum volume of flow established in the Water Flow Maintenance Plan for the river Ter in Girona have been more than those in which it has been fulfilled.
