The Las Dehesas well, better known as Machado’s Widow’s Well, is one of the jewels of the industrial heritage of the Canary Islands. Located in the Cross porthis cconstruction dates back to 1920 and it is the most important of all Archipelago due to its age and the equipment it housed, which includes seven large Ruston engines -perhaps one of the few machinery that remains-, tools and utensils related to water extraction that have been stolen.
This was confirmed by some owners of the well during a visit on Wednesday, in which they confirmed the looting and acts of vandalism that occurred in the place, full of pigeon droppings, dead rats, broken glass, destroyed machinery and even remains of narcotic consumption.
The interior had great heritage value, but has been practically looted. The thieves took all the keys from the main panoply (one of them weighed 25 kilos), discs and parts of the drill, screws, electrical material, glass elements such as spark plugs, ceramic switches, even old and unique appliances, especially a flowmeter, a unique and invaluable material that is almost impossible to recover.
All of them were used for water extraction in the last century, used, for the most part, to irrigate the banana farms of the Fyffes house in the Las Dehesas area.
The well was built by Felipe Machado on a farm near the San Felipe ravine, aware of the scarcity of water to be able to promote and develop agriculture.
Currently, it is part of a community of assets that has several owners, including the City Council, which has 35% of the shares, and its president is the mayor, Marco González. Likewise, it is governed by a Governing Board.
“The City Council was warned of the danger that the facility was in and of the need to protect it to prevent access to anyone who wants to enter. Even for public health reasons, given the state of the warehouse and the existence of excrement and dead rats,” declares the treasurer of the Governing Board and relative of the co-owners of the well, Chusy Hernández.
The last warning was made in May of this year when confirming the massive presence of pigeons with the consequent damage to the machinery and the ship. He also insisted on the risk that they would break in and destroy the interior again due to the existence of holes in the ceiling plate.
Hernández has been trying for two decades to have the well preserved, restored and made available to the people of Portuá “because it is a place from which to tell the hydraulic past of the municipality,” he insists.
Its first machinist was Buenaventura Bravo del Pino, father of Telesforo Bravo, and he was the one who even found remains of the giant Tenerife lizard there.
The Telesforo Bravo-Juan Coello Foundation assures that what happened was the chronicle of a death foretold. “There was a cry that the facility was in poor condition and could be entered, but apathy has prevailed and something of incalculable value has been lost for all the people of Porto and the Canary Islands,” laments its president, Jaime Coello.
In the effort to value the heritage related to water in the city, with initiatives such as organized routes, it was a very significant element. According to Coello, “during the execution of these, the Foundation informed the City Council that the entrance had to be protected because about two years ago thieves had gained access and also took tools.”
Lack of awareness and apathy
The doctor in Art History and specialist in Industrial Heritage, Amara Florido Castro, who also carries out inventories of the historical industrial heritage of the Islands for the Government of the Canary Islands, defines the Las Dehesas well as “the jewel in the crown of the hydraulic heritage of the Canary Islands”, along with La Gordejuela. The expert describes what happened as a “genuine attack against hydraulic heritage” and is a consequence of “lack of attention, lack of awareness and valuing what one has,” despite the fact that this loses a very important chapter in the history of the Cross port.
He assures that it is a well that “had enormous potential to be recovered and given a second life and greater usefulness, especially because of the place where it is located. Only with cleaning and organizing visiting hours would this infrastructure, unique in the entire Canary Islands, have been made profitable.”
In the opinion of Florido Castro, industrial heritage has always been “the great forgotten and punished because the culture of work, effort and our ancestors has not been valued and, above all, when they are singular elements.” In this sense, he believes that administrations “should take a more relevant role in its conservation.
Both she and Chusy Hernández and Jaime Coello believe that to try to repair the damage caused, the accesses must be closed immediately, the pigeons must be removed from the interior, the ship must be cleaned and tidied up, and the machinery that remains must be guaranteed. And it is also urgent to change the uralite roof, a material considered dangerous.
Marco González assures this newspaper that, once the City Council was aware of what happened, it filed the corresponding complaint with the National Police and today it will proceed within the framework of what is allowed, “given that the City Council cannot act freely in a community of property” and analyze with the other parties the measures to be adopted.
González recalls that in the previous term, the former Heritage Councilor, Julia Navas, was in charge of putting the Community of Assets in order, given that it had not been updated, some of its members had changed and the participation fees had not been paid for to be able to convene its bodies and make decisions.
In any case, the president makes it clear that “it has been at least a year” since he has spoken with this co-owner.
