The Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE) will invest more than 760,000 euros in conditioning works for the Soto-Terroba dam. This amount, which corresponds to three different tenders, is added to the total investment of more than 30 million euros (the award … initial of the work was to the joint venture formed by Acciona and Marcor Ebro for 18,19) which, according to a study by the New Culture of Water Foundation, have already dedicated themselves to the reservoir that has not been inaugurated, between the expropriation of land, the tender, the subsequent modification of the contract due to slope instability and the complementary works since the beginning of the works in 2008, with a completion period of two and a half years.
Sixteen years later, the infrastructure, although completed in 2019, is not only not yet operational but requires more work to be able to start its commissioning, a fundamental test to begin its use, suspended in 2022 due to the problems that now need to be solved. with new hires. And a report from the technical management of the CHE in 2021 pointed out “shortcomings and deficiencies” that made it necessary, “prior to restarting the commissioning process, to update the program.”
Specifically, the CHE has awarded the renewal of the system for automatic acquisition of monitoring data and improvement of communications for 180,354.46 euros and the conditioning of the bottom drainage of the dam for 525,412.06 euros, in addition to the control and surveillance of the works for 55,116.71 euros.
Dam release area.
J. RODRIGUEZ
The main intervention will involve the execution of a concrete springboard in the drain, the demolition of the current spillway and the construction of a new one, as well as erecting a new closure wall and the reconstruction of the sea wall of the bottom channel. And it has been proven that there are “problems with the fulfillment of their functions with the security that these infrastructures require”, according to the supporting report of the tender, so, after a hydraulic study, it was considered necessary “to ensure the correct functioning of the bottom drain. This tender has been awarded to Copha with an execution period of three months.
More years of waiting
On the other hand, the renewal of the data acquisition and communications improvement system has been awarded to Sice with a six-month execution period. The Soto-Terroba dam only has telephone communications in the so-called Emergency House, so the control data acquisition systems have become obsolete and “also present difficulties for their proper maintenance, and do not fully satisfy the needs of capacity and bandwidth demanded for the integration of new services. And the supervision of the works has been awarded to Typsa, for eight months.
Top view of the dam’s discharge channel.
J. RODRIGUEZ
In total, not only 760,883.23 euros more investment to be able to put the dam into operation but practically one more year of waiting to be able to start loading prior to its entry into operation. Carlos Arrazola, president of the CHE, spoke months ago in this newspaper of 2027 “in the best of cases”: “The dam is practically in use in the absence of this arrangement of the bottom drains. It could probably be operational in 2027, although it depends a lot on the weather for the loading phases, because they usually take several years and you cannot open a tap to fill it.
#Argentina
