No 935 Monday 5th - Sunday 11th September 2022
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ORIHUELA DEMANDS ‘URGENT’ ACTION FROM CHS
he mayor of Orihuela, Carolina Gracia, is another politician who is demanding ‘urgent action’ from the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS) with the clearing of reeds, debris and other obstructions from riverbeds and ravines as the region looks ahead to a period of meteorological instability.
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Indeed, just last week she travelled to the offices of Mario Urrea, the President of the CHS, where she met with the head at the institution's headquarters in Murcia, a gathering that was also attended by the deputy mayor of the municipality, José Aix. The meeting was extremely cordial and although the mayor confirmed that there was no setting of deadlines or actions she did say that “we will know next week in which areas the work will be carried out with some setting of the priorities to be determined by the municipality.” The two parties agreed to sign an unerstanding that allows a more coordinated action between both administrations to reduce the risk of flooding. In Gracia's words, "it will allow some actions to be financed with aid from the confederation, in addition to defining which areas affect the confederation and which affect the City Council." "We have predefined what is the responsibility of the confederation and what falls on the shoulders of the municipality, as well as what aspects we can work on together," said Aix, who has also called members of the public to be calm despite the possibility of a DANA: “There is nothing at this stage to indicate that we will see a DANA, he said. Gracia added that "the City Council has already begun to carry out some cleaning work so that, if there is an episode of heavy rain, it does not catch us unprepared as it did before", in reference to the torrential rains that devastated the region on 12 and 13 September 2019. Ángel Noguera, Councillor for Infrastructure, who was also at the meeting, reported that the cleaning of the sewerage network is being intensified. Following neighbourhood complaints, he also urged the Orihuela Water Court, to clean up the Canal de Reguerón, which in 2019 flooded the district of Molins for six days.
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