This is a Google translation of information on the AHSA Website about how the money we donated from club funds for conservation work has been, or will be used. (Please note the translator does not always make complete sense but hopefully you will get the general idea! To see photographs and a diagram, or to read the information in Spanish please follow the link to the AHSA Website at the bottom of this page.)
“A few months ago AHSA received two donations, one from the CBBC (Costa Blanca Bird Club) of € 1,000 and another from SOLCIR for another € 890, initially these funds were intended for the installation of a flywheel gate in the pond meadow to improve the regulation of water to the pond. When the restoration works of the Prado were done, the scarcity of resources forced us to reduce expenses where possible, so we took advantage of the existing pipe of one of the runners (ditches that lead leftover irrigation water to the azarbes) which was on the estate, to use as a connection with the nearby azarbeta of Lo Cabello that supplies water to it.
In order to control the entrance of water, a simple cement gate blocked the entrance of this, in a very deficient way, meaning that it was difficult to regulate the levels when filtering the water through the gate to the pool. The installation of the new damper will allow us to improve the control of the levels, to facilitate the management of the reedbeds, to be able to completely dry the pond and to be able to access with a brush cutter.
With respect to the funds we have used for this action, we have managed to reduce costs by commissioning the gate to a blacksmith and hiring the palista and masoner for its installation, so that the rest of the money donated will go to the construction of a well. The project of building a well to provide water for the expansion of the Prado pond is motivated by the high economic cost of the earthworks necessary to access the surface layer of the water table and then move the extracted land to a place convenient. The other option is to raise the water of the azarbes to fill the pond, although to raise the water you have to install a motor and consume energy, either electric or fossil. Before we consider those options we propose an experimental action, the installation of an artesian well, a type of well that accesses the water contained between two impermeable layers and that has the sufficient pressure to allow the water to move to the surface of natural form.
In February 2014, we asked the CHS for authorization to drill a well for the expansion of the flooded area in the Prado pond and we have recently received authorization for its drilling, with a limit of 7,000 m3 per year, not much quantity but, depending on the amount of water that finally flows, we could flood a surface of about 5,000 m2, without using any type of energy.”