The Sau reservoir is the driest in the province of Barcelona and is at 5.1% of its capacity due to the extreme drought that is plaguing Catalonia, while unrepaired water leaks persist in various parts of the Barcelona metropolitan area, such as in Santa Coloma de Gramenet or Badalona.
The reservoirs in the internal basins of Catalonia are already at a historic low of 16.1%, one step away from entering the state of emergency due to drought, which will force municipalities to not exceed 200 liters per inhabitant per day for everyone. the uses.
Of the Ter Llobregat system, which supplies the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona and part of Girona, the emptiest reservoir is the Sau reservoir (5.1% of its capacity), which also transferred the little water it had to the Susqueda reservoir (at 21 %).
The low water level has for months uncovered the old town of Sant Romà de Sau, flooded when the dam was built in 1962.
“I have never seen it so empty, it is a worrying situation,” Jaume, a resident of the Osona region who observed with sadness the low level of the Sau reservoir, told EFE-TV this Sunday.
With the reservoirs in the internal basins of Catalonia at historic lows, numerous water leaks still persist in municipalities in the metropolitan area.
In the Riera de Canyet de Badalona, ??since 20 years ago, around 180,000 liters have been lost every day due to leaks in a pipe of Aigües-Ter Llobregat (ATLL).
The City Council, governed again by the PP since June 2023, acted on a private property to install a 70-meter pipe that recovers part of the lost water – which is drinkable – from one of the leaks in the main pipe.
This temporary solution allows us to introduce part of the resources that were previously lost in the groundwater circuit, which is used to irrigate parks, gardens and streets, the Badalona Councilor for Territory and Sustainability, Daniel Gracia, explained to EFE.
It is a provisional measure because the objective is that the water does not go to the phreatic circuit, since it is drinkable and should be reserved as drinking water.
Thus, Badalona hopes that the ATLL will “prioritize” the pending action, which consists of replacing all the damaged pipes and ensuring that there are no leaks, so that the drinking water can continue its course without leaks.
“We demand that ATLL put out to tender the works on the new pipeline; there will soon be a meeting with ATLL,” explained the councilor.
In Santa Coloma, for “more than 40 years” in a pipe that passes underground there have been leaks but “they can’t find them,” Sebastián, who runs the bar in the cultural center of the Les neighborhood, tells EFE-TV. Oliveres, where day and night you can see water coming down the street.
They are not the only towns with these problems in Catalonia, which is experiencing the worst drought in history.
In the first call by the Generalitat for aid to repair leaks, endowed with 50 million euros, applications were received from 700 municipalities.
This has forced the Government to increase the amount of new aid by 140%, up to 120 million euros.
