Farmers Warn Carraixet Ravine Neglected

A ravine is supposed to move water fast when the storm hits. That is the whole point. Farmers in Valencia are now saying the Carraixet ravine is doing the opposite — trapping vegetation, debris, and sediment in a way that could turn a heavy-rain episode into a flood problem. This week AVA-ASAJA walked the stretch from Bétera to Alboraia and came back with a blunt message: nobody should assume this channel is ready for another DANA. (elperiodic.com) ### What exactly are they saying? The farmers’ group says the Carraixet is clogged by dense cane growth, rubbish, and even fallen trees, enough that its president, Cristóbal Aguado, described parts of it as a “jungle.” The complaint is not just that the ravine looks neglected. It is that all that mate(elperiodic.com)elperiodic.com) ### Why bring up the Poyo ravine? Because in Valencia that comparison lands hard. Aguado said the Carraixet is in the same kind of dirty, collapsed condition that people now associate with the Poyo ravine before the catastrophic 2024 DANA. The point is not that the two channels are identical. The poin(elperiodic.com)s serious after disaster. (libertaddigital.com) ### Where is the risk concentrated? The inspection ran from Bétera down to Alboraia, so this is not a complaint about one isolated patch. Farmers also singled out the new bypass bridge as a possible choke point, basically a place where floodwater cou(libertaddigital.com)ons people picture first. (elperiodic.com) ### Haven’t officials already looked at this? Yes — and that is part of why the farmers are angry. In February 2025 the Júcar river authority, the CHJ, visited the Carraixet in Alboraia to review maintenance needs and possible cleanup work. Local officials in the area had already been pressing for act(elperiodic.com)arning that just appeared out of nowhere. (levante-emv.com) ### So what is the real dispute? It is partly about flood safety, but also about who counts as “maintenance” and who treats the ravine as a protected landscape first. Earlier messaging around the Carraixet stressed that it was not considered a major flood-danger point and talked about selective clearing and (levante-emv.com)nough toward prevention. Basically, they think the balance is wrong. (alboraya.es) ### Why now? Timing. Valencia is again facing storm alerts, and the memory of the 2024 DANA is still fresh enough that nobody needs a long explanation of what blocked channels can mean. A warning that might once have sounded routine now sounds like a test of whether lessons were actually learned. That is why the rhetoric is sharper — not just “please clean this,” but “do not repeat the same mistake.” (elperiodic.com) ### What happens next? AVA-ASAJA wants immediate clearing and closer oversight from the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the CHJ. Whether that turns into emergency work is the open question. But the political risk is already here: if storms arrive before visible action does, every reed bed and blocked section in the Carraixet will look less like neglect and more like a warning that was left sitting in plain view. (libertaddigital.com)