Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Pinar del Río, Feb 3 – Thanks to a complex, ongoing investment project, the El Junco dam in Viñales is once again supplying water to the agricultural system in this northern area of Pinar del Río.
According to estimates, the project will enable the irrigation of more than 130 hectares of tobacco and various other crops.
Rolando González García, director of the Water Resources Management Company of Pinar del Río, explains that the reservoir, with a capacity of nine million cubic meters, had been out of service for about seven years due to the collapse of the gravity-fed pipeline that connected it to a micro-dam supplying agricultural areas in the region.
"Until now, it had not been possible to rehabilitate the system due to the high cost of the required work," adds the official.
Considering the irrigation guarantee that this project represents, he notes that the Tabacuba Business Group decided to contribute the more than 23,000 liters of fuel needed to reconnect El Junco, while the National Institute of Water Resources provided the eight million pesos required for the investment.
To give an idea of the scale of the work—carried out by several brigades of the Water Resources Management Company—González García points out that a channel 17 meters deep and 30 meters wide had to be excavated. "That’stheheight of a building," he says.
Since late December, the reservoir has been restored to functional use, and water deliveries to agriculture have begun. However, the director notes that work continues to remove the old 1,000 mm steel-core pipe and replace it with two 800 mm HDPE pipes, as well as to build a 30-meter-long culvert that will provide access to several economic facilities in the area. (Text and Photo: Granma)
