In 2023, Málaga has experienced its driest year since records began in 1961. The little more than 200 liters per square meter fallen – a third less than the average of the last 30 years – has put an end to several years of rain limited.
More than 250,000 people in a dozen towns are already suffering from power cuts and throughout the Costa del Sol – after having the best tourist year in its history – watering gardens or filling swimming pools is prohibited.
The Andalusian Government has just promoted its fourth drought decree, while planning to install portable desalination plants and hire large tankers.
In return, the province is immersed in one of the largest police operations against the massive and illegal use of water, with 26 people arrested and another 44 investigated for the irregular irrigation of subtropical crops in the Axarquía region.
“It is very likely that there is an environmental crime in this abusive use of water, because in Doñana there has been one,” says the Environmental Prosecutor of Malaga, Fernando Benítez.
The Civil Guard started an investigation in 2018 following several complaints from farmers in Axarquía, east of the Malaga capital.
The agents of the Nature Protection Service (Seprona), in coordination with the Malaga Prosecutor's Office, began their investigations to verify that what they had been told was true: the existence of numerous illegal wells and irregular water concessions in the area.
It mainly affected mango and avocado crops, whose 7,000 hectares make this region the largest producer of tropical fruits in Europe.
The Prosecutor's Office then opened proceedings and during the police operation – called
Chaak
– 180 people were investigated for the illegal use of water.
Finally, the magnifying glass focused on those who have benefited most from unauthorized withdrawals, which have depleted water resources.
The result was 26 people arrested – who have already testified at police headquarters – and another 44 under investigation.
Of the 340 hectares studied, 240 were irrigated with 250 wells without authorization.
It is estimated that almost 26 cubic hectometers have been defrauded and damage valued at ten million euros has been caused.
“The legal irrigators barely had water and the illegal irrigators had all they wanted,” Civil Guard sources explained last spring.
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Have too many subtropicals been planted in the area?
“It's the impression it gives us all,” says Benítez.
“The region has traditionally been dedicated to almond or olive trees, which do not require as much water.
The transformation to these crops must be viable and water must be available, which is a public good.
I cannot enter there from a criminal point of view, but I can enter into the assessment of diverted water and the environmental consequences it may have.”
He points to the lack of control on the part of the administrations, but his work focuses on those who have made “massive and abusive use” for the irrigation of subtropics, thereby obtaining benefits.
“If we also talk about such a large number of crops and such a demand for water that together they can have an impact on the environment, it is very likely that there is also an environmental crime.
These are the questions we must examine.”
Possible crime as in Doñana
The operation is pending expert reports from the State Attorney General's Office, which must quantify the extent of the damage caused and possible damage to the environment.
“Then we will see if the matter goes from a mere diversion of water to an environmental crime, which is how we have approached it here from the beginning.
We must see the consequences of this extraction and how it has affected the balance of the soil, the atmosphere and natural balances,” explains Benítez.
“To the extent that you use water that is a common good for your private benefit without authorization and do so in such disproportionate quantities, you can commit a criminal offense, as provided in article 247 of the Penal Code.
It is likely that there is crime, as has happened in Doñana, although here we do not have the protection of a national park,” the prosecutor insists.
Prosecutor Benítez, in the City of Justice of Málaga.García-Santos
Benítez also develops other investigations.
Follow the trail of two golf courses on the Costa del Sol that allegedly use illegally obtained water to irrigate their grass.
According to the investigation, one of them has an unauthorized collection in the course of a river and combines it with a legal concession.
In the second case, also in the western part of the province, it affects a tropical fruit company, whose land is reached by an unauthorized irrigation ditch from another channel.
“And there is another branch that leads to a golf course, so I have asked that it be investigated,” says the prosecutor, who believes that both judges and magistrates must assume that an ecological crime cannot be as difficult to prove as it is now. .
He says this because of the number of investigations that amount to little or nothing because “the majority of cases are administrative infractions, because they do not have sufficient criminal significance.
I'm not saying that it won't happen in the future, because the Penal Code is easily subject to change among politicians.
The water problem is increasingly serious,” he emphasizes.
In fact, Malaga's reservoirs continue to lose water and La Viñuela, the largest in the province, is now only at 7.4% of its capacity.
Furthermore, he maintains that the administrations that have intervened in surveillance have not done so.
“Then the Junta de Andalucía blames the City Council on duty and vice versa.
Responsibilities are blurred and in the end you are left with nothing.”
The different local, provincial or regional governments have not done their homework either: a study carried out at the end of 2022 indicated that Malaga municipalities lose 7,000 million liters a year due to the poor condition of the pipes.
Finally, the prosecutor denounces the great lack of resources to investigate.
“There is a great need for auxiliary personnel.
It is historical, endemic and it seems that it has no solution because it is claimed every year in the memory of the prosecutor's office,” says someone who believes that environmental awareness is in decline.
“I think it is because of the economic crisis.
This is due to the land liberalization policy, the controversy in Doñana and the foreseeable legalization of illegal water withdrawals in the northern area.
Ultimately they harm the environment, no matter how you look at it,” he concludes.
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