President Luis Abinader began work on the Recovery Plan for the Las Barías Counter-embalse, which will be carried out jointly by the Dominican Hydroelectric Generation Company (EGEHID) and the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INDRHI), under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment. and Natural Resources (MMRN).
In the act, he carried out the wall of the contra-embalse on the Nizao River, in the municipality of Yaguate, accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Soils and Waters of the Ministry of the Environment, René Mateo; the administrator of EGEHID, Rafael Salazar, and the executive director of INDRHI, Olmedo Caba Romano.
The Deputy Minister of Soils and Water of the Environment stated that this pilot action exploited the capacity of the reservoir and also emphasized the required construction of dams for the use of water in our country.
On his side, the executive director of INDRHI said this day as a historic date for this province and the country. “It is a country project that gives life, the Nizao-Najayo and Marcos A Cabral canals come out of this counter reservoir. From here, 200,000 tasks of 4,000 producers are irrigated, to whom we are guaranteeing more water,” he added.
He expressed his opinion of later intervening in the entire Nizao basin, due to the dams that converge there, such as Valdesia, from which the Santo Domingo province is mainly supplied.
Meanwhile, the administrator of EGEHID referred in his speech that this process of rehabilitation and extraction of sediments is a milestone since it will be the first recovery action of a reservoir in the country, allowing more water for the aqueducts, for the irrigation of the food and for hydroelectric generation.
The action responds to instructions from the president to the Water Cabinet, an instance to which he required the presentation of proposals for a solution to the reduction in storage capacity of some hydraulic infrastructures due to the amount of sediment dragged into their reservoirs.
The works consist of the extraction of sediments, the cleaning of the reservoir and the adaptation of the riverbed in the section between the outlet of the discharge of the Valdesia dam hydroelectric plant to the wall of the Las Barías reservoir. They will be carried out in coordination with the Nizao-Valdesia Irrigation Board in order not to affect the irrigation service for agricultural production.
By INDRHI, the supervision of the works will be in charge of the directors of Planning and Water Development, Raúl Pérez, and of Operations of Irrigation Systems, Juan Carlos Nova; the person in charge of the Dams department, Josefina Turbides; the advisor to the Dams department, Romer Polanco; the head of Risk Management, Fausto Colón; the person in charge of Irrigation Systems Operation, Luis Cuevas; the president of the Board of Irrigators Nizao – Valdesia, Gerónimo Mejía, and others.
