Lleida City Council, through the Mancomunitat d’Augües de Pinyana, has asked the Ministry for Ecological Transition to put into operation a water treatment plant that was built in 2010 in the Santa Anna dam that has never been put into operation. functioning.
The Mancomunitat d’Aigües de Pinyana is nourished by the Santa Anna reservoir, which belongs to the Noguera Ribagorçana basin, managed by the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE) and when there was the last major drought in 2008, there were problems turbidity with the water given that the reserve was at a very low level.
So it was decided to build a filtering plant that was finished in 2010 and had a cost of about 5.5 million euros. However, as the dry spell ended, the installation never came into service. In fact, according to the tinent d’alcalde and president of the Mancomunitat, Toni Postius, now that they have asked to start it up and assume management from the Mancomunitat, the ministry itself “was not aware that this had been carried out investment”.
The objective of being able to have this water treatment plant in service is to have a control of the water quality at the headwaters to avoid specific episodes of water turbidity as there were in other municipalities last summer. It is about anticipating drought situations, when the levels are low and episodes of turbidity are more frequent.
Postius accuses the ministry of neglect in this afer and for this reason he points out that they have asked the company that manages the water, Aigües de Lleida, to carry out a project to start up the installation. It is estimated that in about 4 months it could be up and running, since it is necessary to make a small investment because some elements have become obsolete.
According to Postius, this investment will also be claimed from the ministry, but it has shown a predisposition to advance it if the case arises, since the situation cannot entail “harm to the neighbors” who are nourished by the Mancomunitat.
The main water supply tank for Lleida is made up of two vessels totaling 75,000 cubic meters that must be used to guarantee water consumption for 3 days in the city of Lleida. Built in 2008, until now only one of the pools was working as the other had settling and leaking problems.
After a lot of work with those responsible for building the infrastructure, the City Council has managed to finish making the repairs to avoid water losses, which will allow the second pool to come into operation shortly, during the month of May.
Jordi Domingo, head of Urban Services at the City Council, explained that the tank will be refilled and current reserves will be doubled to provide service to the city of Lleida with “minimum reserve guarantees”.
In relation to the drought, according to Postius, the CHE forecasts suggest that the water supply is 100% guaranteed for the whole year and, therefore, Pinyana is not experiencing a “critical situation” like Urgell or Segarra- Garrigues. In this sense, Jordi Domingo adds that the volumes in the Ribagorça conca are sufficient so that there are no restrictions in the short term. Even so, the Mancomunitat has begun to ask farmers to stop irrigating cereal crops to reserve water for fruit bowls.
In Lleida city, an investment has been made so that the network has few fruits with a yield of 85%. In addition, saving measures have been adopted such as the use of water from the Lleida treatment plant to clean and irrigate the streets, ornamental fountains have been closed, push buttons have been installed and irrigation has been reduced. In addition, a public awareness campaign has been launched.
