The Government will allow public or collective use swimming pools (municipal or private community) to be filled. It will thus lift this veto included in the special drought plan for the current phase of exceptionality. The Catalan Executive has decided to make this water saving measure more flexible, given the negative effects that the impossibility of filling the pools for collective use would entail. However, the prohibition on filling privately owned swimming pools is maintained.
The Catalan Executive will modify the special drought plan, so that in a month the pools for collective use that are now empty can be filled. The spokesperson, PatrÃcia Plaja, argued that the measure is adopted for “public health reasons” in the “hottest” months, when these equipment act as climate shelters. The Government has commissioned a report to determine which municipal and community or similar swimming pools may be subject to this consideration.
In the current phase of exceptionality, the application of the drought plan will not cause any practical problem for users of swimming pools that are full. They can be partially filled if they have a recirculation circuit (almost all do) to replace the essential amounts of water that are lost through evaporation and filter cleaning or to guarantee the sanitary quality of the water.
The problem was presented by the emptied pools because in winter they were reformed until the glass was empty, and now they found that, at the beginning of the hot months, they could not be filled (due to the exceptional situation). “Preventing the filling of swimming pools would have a huge impact”, highlights Agustà Ferrer, managing director of the Spanish Association of Professionals in the Swimming Pool Sector (Asofap), who requested this exception, like the municipalities of the metropolitan area. Users of municipal swimming pools, sports centers and urbanizations with swimming pools may benefit.
The modification of the Government can therefore benefit economic sectors such as hotels, gyms or campsites, recalled Plaja. “But we must not lose sight of the fact that water is a scarce resource and that the priority is to ensure it for human consumption and economic uses,” she stressed. The spokesperson has appealed to everyone’s “co-responsibility” to comply with the regulations and pointed out that the municipalities have an important role here.
Currently, the region of Barcelona and Girona is in an exceptional situation. If the panorama does not change, in September it will be possible to enter an emergency. But, even so, “it has been considered that it was good and necessary that during the summer months the use and filling of swimming pools for community use is not restricted.”
On the other hand, if the emergency phase is reached, the special drought plan totally prohibits the total or partial filling of the pools. “We touch down on the ground. If it comes to an emergency, we are not going to ask according to whatâ€, says Ferrer, alluding to the fact that the maintenance sector would assume that in that case it must accept a total saving of water. How much water can a pool lose at the end of the season if the flow is not restored when entering an emergency? Ferrer points out that “it depends on the heat and the use that people make, who get inside and come out wet”; but he estimates that it could be between 10% and 20%.
The Consell Executiu has also announced that a new budget item of 90 million euros has been set up for urgent works to help alleviate the effects of the drought. That money was provided under the heading of special measures. Of this sum, 50 million are for municipalities to promote works that improve the municipal water supply, and another 40 million euros (which were initially 15 million) are specific aid lines for the distribution and improvement of water.
