Rain impact due to bad territorial management [] El Charco

Published October 8, 2021

El Charco del Ingenio

Warnings and recommendations to preserve the vegetation upstream of the urban area of San Miguel has served no purpose. For years experts have recommended that urban development not be extended towards the high parts of the municipality, which receive rainwater from the Picachos, Tambula and La Margara mountain ranges. This was established by the first urban development plan, in 1996, and thus ratified in 2012 by the Ecological Program (POET).

However, the successive municipal governments have done exactly the opposite of the provisions of environmental standards. The urban sprawl has reached up the basin removing vegetation that allows water retention and infiltration. In the stripped down areas there are more and more housing developments, shopping centers, industries, etc., hampering water to penetrate the subsoil and directing it into the streams. Water then runs in great volume and speed, overflowing natural waterbeds and flooding the lower urban areas of San Miguel, as we have recently witnessed, causing already two deaths and countless damage to homes, businesses and urban infrastructure.

Will the ruling classes finally understand that the destruction of plant cover is a primary cause of seasonal floods? That this is not just about ecological damage, but a serious risk of civil protection? Will they act accordingly? Or will they continue to repeat the logic of business and arrangements regardless of the fatal effects on the population?