Spain removes 85 'zombie dams' from water plan

Hydrological plan drops 85 'zombie dams' without expanding irrigation

The Ministry for Ecological Transition has cut the planned infrastructure catalog: 85 reservoirs and weirs have been removed from the new hydrological plans, labeled as "zombies." The document also closes the door to increasing water allocated for irrigation and minimizes new dam projects. Up to this point, it is administrative management. The controversy arises when this fine print intersects with demolitions already underway in various parts of the country and the widespread suspicion that no one wants to publish the complete list of those targeted.

What does removing 85 'zombie dams' miccionan?

The chosen word was "remove," and everyone interpreted it differently. There is a literal reading: these are planned but never started dams, paper projects that never moved a shovel and which the new plan discards. Under this prism, nothing is demolished; simply nothing is built. The other, more expansive reading understands that the Executive has launched a program to eliminate existing reservoirs and applies it in installments, without warning those affected. Both fit into the same headline, and that is exactly what complicates the discussion.

The recurring detail is opacity. The list of the 85 targeted sites has not been made public. Without specific names on the table, any suspicion gains traction and none can be fully closed.

Is removal the same as demolition? From unbuilt dams to torn-down ones

It is worth separating two things the headline mixes. One, ecological flow: the thesis that the best way for a river to flow is to stop impounding it. Another, operational infrastructure. Here appears the most repeated and simplest argument: for a river to flow, there is no need to demolish the dam, it is enough to open the sluice gate. With the gate open, the water flows down; closed, it does not. Demolition would only be justified if the goal were not the river itself.

In the opposite direction, the strongest response running through the discussion is chronological: information about discarding 85 planned but unstarted dams is old, dating from 2013. From the original plan, what has been executed is limited to a few cases, and some are not even supply reservoirs. This nuance, however, does not reach the headlines.

Cases actually on the table: Torrelodones, Teruel, and Robledo

Here there are names. The Peñascales Dam in Torrelodones has become the symbol: the City Council has announced an appeal to try to stop its closure, and the municipal registry collapsed under a flood of neighborhood signatures against the shutdown. The detail that causes the most indignation is that neighbors learned from the press about a demolition affecting them, rather than through official communication.

In Teruel, the Los Toranes case accumulates previous protests due to the closure of irrigation channels dependent on the reservoir. The count also includes a hydroelectric plant—not human supply or irrigation—and a reservoir in Extremadura that would be the only clear candidate for demolition, although the demolition has not yet been carried out. And there is a data point that disorients defenders of the plan: one of the targeted sites had been empty since 2012 and another unused since 1990. The obvious question is why it took so long to flag them.

Water for firefighting and irrigation: the argument missing from the headline

Beyond ecological flow, there is a use that rarely enters the calculations: reservoirs function as firefighting reserves. There the calculation becomes uncomfortable. If a river barrier disappears, refilling water for extinction depends on mobile means, with longer travel times. In a country with long low-water periods and increasingly hot summers, that is not a minor detail.

To this is added irrigation. The plan explicitly rules out expanding water for agriculture, in a context of rising food prices. The more conspiratorial reading—creating scarcity to later ration and charge—lacks documentary backing, but has fertile ground: while irrigation is tightened, other consumptions remain just as well served.

With the map of the 85 unpublished, concrete cases on the brink of courts, and executed demolitions countable on one hand, the discussion always gets stuck at the same point. No one knows what the list is. And without a list, everyone defends their version. That is the exact terrain where doubt grows faster than any dam.