The Catalan institutions responsible for water management are continuing with preparations in view of the possible need to resort to the use of ships to transport water to Barcelona if the drought continues unabated. It is not exactly the most desired solution or a short-term option, but the situation is so serious that it has been necessary to plan for this eventuality in order to be able to make provision for new sources of supply.
But what can the contribution of ship transport be to the guarantee of supply? Would it be a relevant help? Sources familiar with this logistics point out that the ships that can transport water to Barcelona have an average storage capacity of around 40,000 cubic meters of water (40 million litres) each, which is equivalent to the consumption of around 190,000 people, a figure that comes out if we take as reference the water supply for all uses reserved in the current pre-emergency phase by the Generalitat (210 liters per person per day for all uses: not just strictly domestic ones). In the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona, ??on average, 500,000 cubic meters of water are consumed per day (500 million liters of water), which means that each ship could contribute to the consumption of approximately 8% of this demand ( it would take 12 ships a day to cover it almost completely). They are not extraordinary percentages by any means, but they can constitute a contribution that eases the pressure on other resources and allows reserves to be saved.
“That we have to talk about all this shows that we are very, very bad, that the situation is desperate”, says Joan Compte, who was director of the public company Aigües Ter Llobregat when in 2008 a transport had to be organized of water in boats in Barcelona also due to another drought. The Generalitat – governed at the time by the tripartite party – prepared all that device in collaboration with Agbar, when the Ter and Llobregat reservoirs were below 20% capacity in 2008. At that time there were no desalination plants nor was the Prat de Llobregat waste water regeneration plant working (which serves to indirectly reuse the treated flows by dumping them upstream to be potable in Sant Joan Despí), and which have dampened the effects of the drought
On that occasion, the transport of water was organized with six ships, with the provision of making 63 monthly trips (in ships with a capacity of between 19 and 42 million liters each) to bring water to Barcelona from Tarragona (wells and of the mini transfer of the Ebro to Tarragona) and Marseille (Rhone basin). The plan provided that all that load would supply a volume of 1.66 hm3 per month, which would cover around 6% of the consumption of the 5.5 million inhabitants served by the Ter and the Llobregat.
The first ship (Sichen Defender) brought water from Tarragona, where the loading tasks lasted nine hours, and docked at the port of Barcelona on May 13, 2008. Several witnesses collected now by this newspaper confirm that this first load it didn’t work, although it was able to be disembarked without problems and the water of the Bas-Rhône-Languadoc canal or Philippe-Lamour canal was connected to the network.
“I remember that a first ship brought water that was not in the right conditions”, recalls Compte. Then, the arrival of generous rains in May “erased” all the plans and caused the whole device to be discarded, the same as the controversial plan already approved to extend the so-called mini transfer of the Ebro in Camp de Tarragona until to connect with the Ter Llobregat system in the Barcelona region. “We were left waiting for the water that also had to come from the Carboneras desalination plant”, points out another manager who participated in that operation, which illustrates its complexity.
The preliminary work is also laborious so that the boats can be loaded with water when the time comes, in June, if the drought persists, according to the Generalitat’s forecast.
One of the essential players is the port of Tarragona. By the end of January, the revision tests of the pipe that must carry the water from the mini transfer of the Ebro to the Rioja wharf, where it is planned that the ships will be loaded and set sail for Barcelona, ??will be completed, some confirm port sources
The results of the tightness and pressure tests of the water pipe, within the port’s public domain, are expected to be favorable, so the Port Authority of Tarragona will have the installation prepared and tested this same month, the same sources detail.
The pipe has a length of almost one kilometer and a diameter of half a meter. It runs underground until it connects with the municipal network that is the responsibility of the Tarragona City Council, where the water from the Ebre mini-transfer arrives. The last time this facility was put into operation was in the drought of 2008. The review is mandatory in case repair work is needed.
Other actors also have, therefore, duties. Ematsa, the municipal water company of Tarragona, is already working to have ready the branch of its distribution network, essential to get the water from the mini transfer to the port, as confirmed by sources from the public body.
The Consorci d’Aigües de Tarragona (CAT), the body that manages the distribution of water from the mini-transfer for the entire province, has publicly ruled out an alternative route to get the water to the port. The branch from Ematsa to the port has a capacity of 650,000 cubic meters of water per month (each ship can carry 40,000 m³).
The Generalitat would be in charge of finding the consignee, requesting the stopover and the ship. The port of Tarragona will have to adapt the operation of the Rioja pier to fit the scale and needs of water vessels. It is a dock where fruit container ships operate daily.
Meanwhile, the latest precipitation has not had an effect on the reserves in the Barcelona region, which have not stopped the fall or brought snow with the promise of generous thaws. Reservoirs continue to decline. The snow that has fallen these days – which could feed the Ter and the Llobregat – has been so little that the little that has been seen will evaporate or infiltrate.
“Weather predictions have failed, even 24 hours ahead; expectations have deflated, there was not the much-desired lift”, regret the technicians of the Generalitat.
The level of the Ter and Llobregat reservoirs is at 16.8% (103 hm), and the emergency is declared when they are at 16% (100 hm). If it doesn’t rain, in just over two weeks the emergency threshold could be crossed, which allows domestic restrictions to be authorised.
