The Councilor for Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Generalitat of Catalonia, David Mascort, met this Wednesday with Aigües de Barcelona officials at the facilities of the Besòs treatment station to try to jointly address the current situation of the drought This meeting is part of the calendar of meetings that the councilor is holding with various operators responsible for the distribution of water and municipal and supra-municipal entities.
Mascort has told journalists that, “when necessary”, water will be transported by boat to Barcelona due to the drought and that, if this scenario occurs because the situation does not improve, they will be able to arrive before the summer to supply the population. Furthermore, the councilor added that the arrival of these ships depends on factors such as water savings and the water resources that can be produced until then.
Regarding the necessary adaptation works in the port, he announced that they will cost “between 4 and 5 million euros”, and they have already begun. The action consists of changing some valves, adapting the accesses and carrying out maintenance on the structure that operated during the 2008 drought, when water was also transported in boats. Furthermore, in the port of Tarragona they are already “carrying out an analysis of how the facilities are, to see if any action needs to be taken to be able to extract the water.”
Department sources have reported that a ship can carry around 20,000 or 40,000 cubic meters of water and that “about two a day” could arrive in Barcelona, ??although they insist that these are future scenarios.
The councilor has stressed the need to join joint efforts with the operators that manage the water cycle. “Today we have met with the country’s main operator to monitor each of the planned actions in order to face this persistent drought, to see where we are and how they are evolving,” declared the councilor.
Mascort has announced that the works being carried out by Aigües de Barcelona with the support of the Generalitat at the Besòs plant to recover the Rec Comtal resources for supply will end in summer. In addition, he has also stated that actions are being carried out in Sant Joan Despí and Sant Feliu de Llobregat with the aim of “securing the resources we have with the current conditions of so little water in the reservoirs and rivers.”
The councilor explained that all these actions are not for a specific moment, but rather they are actions that ensure the resistance of the entire system. Likewise, he has also stated that these actions are aimed at ensuring that the water they already have “has the necessary quality to be able to use it and to have more resources and provide greater resistance to the entire system.”
Within the framework of the Water Management Plan for the Internal Basins, the Generalitat plans to invest 2,400 million euros until 2027. This investment will be distributed in different works, including the modernization of the Ter treatment plant and the construction of two new water treatment plants in the final stretch of the Besòs with the aim of mobilizing new water resources.
For its part, Aigües de Barcelona has expressed the need to continue working with the Generalitat and the rest of the administrations to guarantee the supply of water for all uses. They have also explained other measures with the same objective, such as sending regenerated water from the Baix Llobregat treatment plant upstream to Molins de Rei, to reuse it as pre-drinking water.
When asked if the forecast to enter a state of emergency due to drought in mid-December is maintained, Mascort responded that the emergency will be entered “when the reservoirs reach 16%” of their capacity, although he hopes to delay the entry into This status. Although, yes, the councilor has pointed out that both citizens and all economic activities in Catalonia “have to make an effort to save water to prolong the entry into emergency and that perhaps the boats will not have to arrive.”
