About 50 civil guards arrive early in the morning in Iniesta (Cuenca) and spread out across the crop fields in the area.
They are not looking for drugs or weapons, or even illegal plantations: they are here to unmask water theft in an area with an overexploited aquifer.
Non-compliers use all kinds of strategies: hidden wells, underground diversions, fake meters (with rods or giant magnets) and buried pipes so that it is not known when they are watering.
This is a day with the agents of the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard who try to discover these tricks, between night inspections, satellite photos and forays into the field.
An operation as large and with so much deployment of agents as the one that took place last August is not usually common, but this town of about 4,500 inhabitants – dedicated mainly to agriculture and headquarters of several transport companies – has experienced two in just one two years.
In the first, in 2022, Seprona and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation (CHJ), responsible for the area, estimated that 3.8 million cubic meters had been irregularly removed, with damage to the Public Hydraulic Domain of about 460,000 euros.
“That's like 1,144 Olympic swimming pools in a single municipality,” said Ángel Francisco Jiménez, head of the Seprona Research service in Cuenca and responsible for both operations, a few days ago.
In the second, in August, 1.65 million cubic meters and about 232,000 euros of damage.
All of this in a context of drought, in an area with an overexploited aquifer—which is why the CHJ does not allow new water extraction points—and in a basin where reservoirs are below the average of the last 10 years.
Three Seprona agents carry out an inspection of a water well in the Iniesta area (Cuenca), to find out if it complies with the law. Mònica Torres
A Seprona agent inspects the inside of farmer José David Garrido's well, in Iniesta (Cuenca).
Monica Torres
Alfonso Molero and Miguel Ángel Rubio (both wearing helmets) and José Ramón Gallego, head of Seprona in Cuenca, inspect the booth next to the well where the flow meter and the seal of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation are located.
Monica Torres
A Seprona agent inspects a flow meter to see if the meter is correctly registering the water extracted from the well.
Monica Torres
Ángel Francisco Jiménez, head of the investigation service of the Seprona of the Civil Guard in Cuenca, inspects some vineyard plots in which he suspects there may be illegal wells.
Monica Torres
Next to each well there is usually an installation of solar panels that power the pump to extract groundwater.Monica Torres
“When we receive information that someone is converting dryland plots into irrigated land, the first thing we do is see the land registry, and then we approach to do an inspection trying not to be seen,” Jiménez now points out at a gas station. close to Iniesta.
“Afterwards, we take aerial photos with a drone or request satellite images of the area—for example, from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition—which help us both to see what is planted and to see if there is humidity at times when It hasn't rained,” he says, and shows one of those images on his computer, from which he never leaves.
“Look, this photo is from August, it had not rained for a month, and you can see that the area is clearly wet: they were watering without communicating it,” he adds.
Today it's a routine inspection for a small farmer.
The land is an infinite succession of vines in which a leafy tree swims in the background.
They are planted in a row, helped by sticks, and each trunk is surrounded by a piece of plastic.
“It's so that the rabbits don't eat them,” explains the farmer, José David Garrido.
Above the climbing plants, about 75 centimeters high, you can see a black tube through which the drip irrigation runs.
Today the ground is wet, because it has rained, and Garrido is happy.
The well is a construction shed, with exposed and unplastered concrete blocks, with a window.
It is covered by a large installation of solar panels, which help operate the pump that draws water from the well.
Miguel Ángel Rubio and Alfonso Molero, two Seprona agents, arrive at the facility on their muddy motorcycles.
Next to the well, but outside, there is a small construction – less than a meter high – whose tin roof opens without problems.
Inside is the flow meter that marks how much water is taken from the well.
Rubio and Molero write down the data and verify that everything is correct: the CHJ seal—which prevents it from being tampered with—, the operation of the system, and the amount of water used.
“The aquifer has dropped a lot”
“Each well in the area has permission to extract about 7,000 m³ a year to irrigate about 10 hectares of land.
I usually get about 4,000, the ideal is not to spend it,” explains the farmer.
He has about 11 hectares of vines, Syrah variety, which he uses to produce bulk wines.
Each of these installations can cost 50,000 to 100,000 euros, including the solar panels that help move the pump.
“I have noticed a big difference.
When I needed to irrigate in recent years I took out about 80 m³, but now I can't even take out 60. The aquifer has dropped a lot and the pump takes out sand instead of water,” adds Garrido.
José David Garrido shows his well (a construction shed with solar panels) during a Seprona inspection. Mònica Torres
Part of it is due to the lack of rain, but another is attributed to illegal extractions.
“The non-compliant people are always trying to find new ways to use water,” says José Ramón Gallego, head of the Seprona section in Cuenca, on the same field.
“For example, they try to hide the irrigation tubes and put underground pipes, which are much more expensive, so that you cannot see when they are watering.
But there are always leaks and moisture stains end up appearing;
If we see them in summer, it is clear that they are being watered, and if the tubes are not visible we suspect that they are hiding something.”
Burying irrigation is much more expensive than having it visible.
The mischief also leads to the manipulation of authorized wells to extract much more water than permitted.
“One of the ways is with huge magnets, bigger than a hand, which are very powerful and render the flow meter useless.
If they see the Seprona or CHJ agents arrive, they remove that magnet and it seems that the well is working correctly,” Gallego continues.
In these cases, they have to do inspections at night.
“In a night shift we can inspect 10 to 15 wells.
Last time we found three magnets,” he adds.
Miguel Ángel Rubio and Alfonso Molero, two Seprona agents, search for illegal wells with their muddy motorcycles in Lniesta (Cuenca).
Monica Torres
Miguel Ángel Rubio confirms it from his motorcycle.
“We carry out routine checks, sometimes on our own, other times because someone in the area has notified us: they have planted pistachios there and they do not have permission to water.
We go and check it.”
Each inspection has its keys.
“During the day, solar panels betray them, because they are very bulky.
They are always placed next to wells, even if they are not declared as such.
And if we go at night, you can hear the noise of the water pump motor,” he continues.
All wells must have free access to the meter – or flowmeter –, both for Seprona and the CHJ nursery to access.
It is not always fulfilled either.
There are more illegalities, such as disabling the meter with a rod (which paralyzes the flow meter) or building an underground diversion, that is, a tube that comes directly from the well without passing through the meter, so that that water is distributed without remaining constancy.
“Another trick is to make fake wells to make it seem like you have the right to more irrigation than you are entitled to,” says Jiménez.
According to data from the Nature Protection Service (Seprona), in the last five years (since 2019), 4,332 illegal aquifer infrastructures have been detected throughout Spain, which not only include wells, but also boreholes and ponds.
A member of Seprona walks through the countryside to find any of the tricks used to overexploit irrigation.
Monica Torres
The CHJ, which works hand in hand with Seprona on these issues, points out that sanctioning files directly linked to water have risen from around 20 per year between 2019-2021 to almost 70 in 2023. “This increase is due to two factors: there are more inspections and they are well worked on previously,” says a spokesperson for the CHJ.
Sanctions can reach up to one million euros.
Image of a drone during a Seprona search in Iniesta (Cuenca), in an operation against illegal wells.
Civil Guard
If the case is very serious, very large operations are mounted, like the one last summer that investigator Ángel Francisco Jiménez recalls: “On that occasion the judge granted us an entry and search order.
We left early and sent three agents next to each well, so that nothing could be disturbed, while a drone took aerial images.
We found that it was being watered much more than allowed.
The result was the arrest of three people from the non-compliant company.”
And he summarizes: “Those who are harmed the most by illegal wells are the farmers who comply with the law.”
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