THE CHALLENGE TO GRAVITY

In the heart of the Andévalo area (Andalucía, southern Spain) a dream has come true, that of technology challenging the laws of nature.

After many years of efforts and an ambitious investment, irrigation water is already a reality in the small Andevaleño municipality of Paymogo, thanks to the extraction of water from the Andévalo dam, the largest in the province of Huelva, and the project promoted by the Comunidad de Regantes Andévalo Fronterizo (CRAF), a local association of irrigators.

To do this, the Temporary Union of Companies formed by the companies Hermanos Vega and Suministros-Proyectos, Obras y Contratas, has built a pumping station on a floating pontoon, with three B16 seven-turbines type pumps manufactured by Emica, powered by 315 kW engines and driving a total of 2,000 m3/h through a 7.5 km piping system, and a slope of 120 m, to feed a raft of 7 hectares with capacity for 200 million liters.

This first project (North sector) involves the agricultural transformation of 717 hectares for citrus cultivation, which will be added to another major project underway (South East sector) to complete 6,641 hectares, 80% of which will already have irrigation within five years.

The relevance of the project to the area, in terms of job creation and local development, has brought together at its inauguration a rich representation of irrigators and local authorities, including the president of the Payments Board of Sierra de Paymogo, Ramón Gómez Fernández; the President of the Community of Irrigators Andévalo Fronterizo (CRAF), Juan Antonio Millán; the mayor of Paymogo, María Dolores Fernández; the director of the Association of the Communities of Irrigators of Andalucía (CREA), Jorge Forné Moreno; the director of the Citrus Project of J. García Carrión company, Antonio Moreno; and José María Mestre, manager of the Temporary Union of Companies constituted for the execution of the works.

It should also be noted that the project is a benchmark in terms of environmental sustainability, since it implements all the elements necessary for the reduction of energy consumption, the use of renewable energies and the preservation of pastureland, in which not a single tree has been cut down.