There will be no additional measures to limit water consumption in the coming months, but the existing restrictions will remain in place. The March rains, the savings measures, as well as the availability of desalination and regeneration resources, will allow the Barcelona region, areas of Girona and the Costa Brava not to have to extend the restrictive measures in the face of summer Another consequence of the slight relief from the rains in March is that water transport by boat would not be carried out in June, but would, in any case, be postponed until the end of summer or later (it will all depend on the balance of rainfall and water consumption).
The rainfall of the last few days has been a relief. They are insufficient to get out of the drought, but they have been welcomed with open arms, since they have broken a trend in the decline of reservoir reserves that has been practically interrupted since the summer of 2023. “We will remain in the emergency situation And that is in most of the territory. There will be no more restrictions in the summer, but there won’t be any less either”, remarked the Government spokeswoman, Patrícia Plaja.
In March, the rains made it possible to obtain an additional 20 hm3, mainly concentrated in the Ter-Llobregat system. The 16 hm3 won in this central region have made it possible to recover reserves for two months. “March has been the wettest month of the last two years”, added Plaja, who wanted, despite everything, to avoid the image of unjustified optimism, since reserves in the reservoirs “are still low”. “It should not change the perception in the country that we are in an extremely serious situation”, he remarked. In the case of Ter and Llobregat, reserves are at 109 hm3, which represents 17.8% of capacity.
Josep Vidal, secretary general of the Department of Climate Action, did not dare to specify when the Government will lift the emergency in the municipalities supplied by the Ter and the Llobregat. He pointed out that it will depend on several factors (such as the rains that may fall in the coming months, as well as the obtaining of new resources and the decrease in water consumption). “What we can’t do is lift the emergency to re-enter after a month”, he declared. Councilor David Mascort assured on Wednesday that the Ter-Llobregat system could return to the phase of exceptionality when the reserves increase to 27% or 28% (now they are at 17.8%). In the case of the municipalities that depend on the Darnius-Boadella reservoirs, which are in emergency II, tightening the restrictions in the coming months has also been ruled out.
This slight improvement has postponed for a few months the possibility of transporting water by boat from the desalination plant in Sagunto, an option that the Government has been studying for months and on which it has worked together with the Central Administration. This option is only considered if the territory enters emergency phase II, which would be entered once the reserves fell below 67 hm³. “We do not rule it out, but they will not come into operation in the current emergency stage I”, said the general secretary of Acció Climàtica, Josep Vidal. At least we won’t see the ships in June or July.
At the same time, the Government continues the negotiation process with the municipal entities to define an adjustment in the special drought plan that allows municipal swimming pools to be filled, a situation that the current regulations prohibit. “We are working with the municipalities on how we define what climate shelters are, since they can also be civic centers or libraries; we’ll see what the definition is and under what circumstances a swimming pool is declared a climate shelter”, said Vidal.
The common goal is that citizens can face the high temperatures that are expected in the summer. However, the spokespersons of the Federation of Municipalities want the Government not to make a restrictive interpretation of the consideration of swimming pools as a climate shelter that would mean that some municipalities could open municipal swimming pools and others could not. “In the coming weeks we will give details of all these extremes, since we are aware of the interest that this issue arouses in the municipalities and in many sectors of the population in the run-up to the summer; it won’t take long”, added Plaja. The Catalan Executive has already received the request from the hoteliers of Lloret de Mar to install a water desalination plant that will allow them to fill the swimming pools of the tourist establishments. After receiving the request, the Government has communicated what are the technical and legal requirements that must be met.
