The Port de la Selva will use regenerated water to reduce the salt levels of the aquifer that supplies the municipality. The council will recover the ‘DEMOWARE’ pond system by injecting water from the treatment plant which, with a filtering system, will end up in the subsoil.
This should make it possible to increase water levels and reduce the concentration of salt extracted by the desalination plant, which has been in operation since June.
Since the summer, salt levels have doubled. This causes the desalination plant to need more time to desalinate the water and cannot work at maximum capacity. In parallel, the municipality’s Yacht Club plans to install a seawater desalination plant this fall.
The constant extraction of water and the lack of rain have caused the salinization of the aquifer that supplies Port de la Selva to have increased exponentially since this summer.
The mayor, Lidia Ferrer explains that in June – when the desalination plant was commissioned – it was at levels of 8,000 microsiemens per centimeter (mc/cm), the unit used to measure it. During the last few months it has been able to stabilize, but it is now at 15,000. This causes the desalination plant that extracts water directly from the aquifer to take longer to carry out the process and cannot extract the 100 cubic meters per day that it has capacity.
As Easter and summer approaches, Ferrer fears that, if it doesn’t rain, the system will not be enough and, therefore, they want to complement it with regenerated water. In fact, they are only pending permission from Salut, which he must authorize and to which the Costa Brava Girona Water Consortium made the request months ago.
Once they obtain it, they will make a kind of ‘bypass’ between the ponds and the treatment plant to be able to directly contribute the regenerated water.
The injected water will seep underground into the aquifer. Ferrer explains that the ‘DEMOWARE’ project had to stop years ago due to breakdowns in the conduction system and because Salut detected some “biocides” that did not allow contributions to be made. Now the Consortium has installed an osmosis system in the treatment plant that allows the necessary filtering to be carried out.
The mayor hopes that the measure will allow us to face the tourist season with guarantees, when the municipality multiplies its population. “We hope that by mixing the water we will reduce the salinity levels,” remarks Ferrer.
The municipality’s Yacht Club also plans to install a smaller seawater desalination plant this fall. The facility is promoting an improvement project, within the framework of the renewal of the space concession, which includes a new building with an infirmary, shower spaces and the desalination plant, among others.
The goal, Ferrer explains, is for them to be “self-sufficient.” The project includes the transfer of several trees from the area, which will be relocated next to the town stream.
The measure has provoked criticism from some neighbors through social networks. However, Ferrer remembers that these are species of African origin, that they are not “native” and that the desire is to preserve them.
