Drilling too Deep?

Supporting Today's Blog Action Day for Climate Change

Recently I've found myself wondering about the environmental implications of digging deeper and deeper into the ground for irrigation water – a phenomenon that has only been commonplace relatively recently here in Spain as previously the boring equipment to dig that deep wasn't widely available or, where it was, few farmers had the money to pay for that kind of water prospecting.

These days, however, technological advancements along with the relative increase in affluence in the country mean that more and more people – both farmers and the owners of rural (often second) homes - are digging (legally or illegally) deeper and deeper into the earth's core for their water sources. This has been exacerbated by the property boom during which unscrupulous speculators took advantage of a loop-hole in the law which allowed houses to be erected on smaller plots of land provided they were on 'riego' – or irrigated – land and not 'secano' – traditional, unirrigated farmland usually used for olive, almond and cherry trees.

Reading today in El País about the underground fires in the Natural Park of Las Tablas de Damiel in the province of Castilla Mancha which have been burning since August, it is clear that there are long-term environmental consequences to draining our ground-waters and that those consequences are serious.

Las Tablas de Damiel are 'humedales' – or wetlands – and, as such, the last place you would expect this kind of fire to occur. The fires are started by the spontaneous combustion of 'turba' – or peat – formed during 300.000 years in an oxygen-free environment. Four years of drought have dried out the land to such an extent that cracks have appeared in the surface creating an air flow underground that, when combined with an increase in temperature, cause the peat to self-ignite.

So what does all this have to do with deep drilling for water? Well, surprise, surprise, it turns out that, as well as the effect of the four years of drought, it is the thousands and thousands of illegal wells in the region that have substantially contributed to the dryness of the ground in the natural park by depleting the groundwater to this dangerous level. 15 hectometers (about the equivalent of 15 football stadiums) of water are now needed to flood the area sufficiently to put out the fires.

Miguel Ángel Soto, responsible for Greenpeace's Forest Campaign, warns that when we talk about the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, we have to consider not only emissions from things like factories but also the abuse of the wetlands which are changing from absorbing CO2 to emitting it instead. The fire in Las Tablas de Damiel is emitting each day approximately 100 to 400 tons of CO2 and carbon monoxide as well as methane, another greenhouse gas. And this fire isn't an isolated incident: In the US, last year, a peat fire in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina burned for three months destroying 17.000 hectares of land and in Australia a similar fire has been raging for centuries!

So it turns out that the fires in Las Tablas de Damiel are a double whammy when it comes to climate change. Not only are we losing the beneficial process of CO2 absorption that the area would normally perform but greenhouse gases are being increased by the fires raging there. And the presence of this fire is directly related to the abuse of our groundwater resources.

Photos from El Pais article: Trasvase de emergencia contra el incendio subterráneo de Daimiel and US Fish and Wildlife Service News Release Evans Road Fire on Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge Officially Declared "Out"