David Bravo (38 years old, from Valdecaballeros, Badajoz) worked until just a few days ago as a welder in Avilés (Asturias). He did it in a workshop specializing in prefabricated material, whether for boats, houses or containers. He has a child in his care and had decided to emigrate to his father’s land in November to improve his job prospects. That was when he found out, as EL MUNDO published, that the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge had issued an order in the BOE approving the demolition of the dam of the reservoir in his town (just over 1,000 inhabitants). The town rose to fame in the mid-80s for running out of a nuclear power plant when the works were about to end. The Government of Felipe González backed down and approved a nuclear moratorium.
The great engineering work, with a capacity of 71 hm3 on the Guadalupejo riverbed, which had been built in 1984 to cool the two planned reactors, never came into service. There was planted, among other things, a great wall 36 meters high and 487 meters long. However, during the last four decades it has been reused without interruption to supply drinking water to the populations of Valdecaballeros, Castilblanco and Alía (Cáceres) in Badajoz, almost 3,000 people in total, and more than double in summer, in addition to serving as a irrigation for an area with a powerful livestock sector that covers 20,000 hectares.
So David did not think twice when he read that the Government had given six months for its demolition. He asked for the settlement in his company and returned to Valdecaballeros to go on a hunger strike (since last Monday) to attract attention. It has become, along with its large cross, a true symbol: “As it cools down, the night gets hard, we will fight with everything without stopping advancing”, he tells of his first dawn, climbed on the metal cross of 6.20 meters, painted blue (“the color of water”), which he himself has made.
David explains that he came up with the idea of ??using this Christian symbol to convey “that all of us in town were being crucified with this decision to demolish.” Then another justification arose that also fit him: “It represents the Cross of Asturias, union and victory, and also the fact of defending life”, he proclaims, although it has to be even “on horse and sword”, as tells the story. By the way, he calculates how long he will last without eating food and only water: “About 60 days…”.
So with a lot of strength still ahead, now his only concern is to create enough awareness to fight in this crusade “all together” while preparing a demonstration for May 21 if he obtains authorization from the Government Delegation. “People must wake up, say: enough is enough! We need them because we all have to unite as one: animalists, hunters, fishermen, farmers… because we all drink, we all need the life that water gives us, union gives strength and that could be our victory”, he predicts.
David’s case (“with 80 cents in the bank account, although I expect my last salary to be deposited shortly”) is not the only one in Valdecaballeros, although it is the most mediatic, which is springing up to defend the current status quo. Many other ordinary citizens have recently begun to mobilize to avoid the unilateral decision of the Government, which wants to restore “to its natural state” the area that never became nuclear. For this he gave a maximum period of six months. Neither the Junta de Extremadura itself nor the affected municipalities understand the government’s decision to demolish it, which was requested by some environmental associations, including Ríos de Vida.
The Ministerial Order not only terminates the water concession right that it granted to the companies in 1982 for the use of water from the Guadiana River, in the García Sola reservoir, which they reach through the Guadalupejo River tributary, but also urges to the municipalities involved, together with the Guadiana Hydrographic Confederation, to find a solution for the water service to the residents. The costs of the demolition actions, still not officially specified, “will be at the expense of the concession holders,” according to the order, and the new infrastructures to make the water drinkable, to the neighbors.
The Junta de Extremadura – which has been the owner of the plant’s land since January 2020 and to which the Ministry has not consulted the demolition order – has already announced the filing of an appeal to prevent demolition. The mayor of Valdecaballeros, Gregorio Rodríguez Dueñas (PSOE), does not understand the decision. “Now we have a water treatment plant and if they demolish the dam they would force us to move two kilometers to the south, which would mean a change for the worse in the quality of the water, which would no longer come from the mountainous area, in addition to being a serious detriment to livestock and for the natural ecosystem, with irreversible damage”.
While David, raised to the top of his blue cross, fights like a warrior “in the face of the great injustice that they want to commit, an authentic nonsense”, proclaims the new hero of Valdecaballeros.
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