Four professional colleges (Road Engineers, Agricultural Engineers, Industrial Engineers and Economists of Catalonia) have presented a detailed proposal to connect the Ebro water network of the Tarragona Water Consortium (CAT) with the Barcelona metropolitan network, in from the ATL company. These schools argue that the drought situation is critical in the Barcelona region, that there is no certainty that all the flows remaining in the bottoms of the reservoirs (at 15% of their maximum level) can be potable and that the solution to face the lack of resources is this link of the supply networks. They argued that their proposal, a true express connection, could materialize in just eight months.
The professional associations that make up the Observatori Intercol·legial de la Sequera insist on the advantages of a transfer of water to the Barcelona area with untapped resources from the CAT concession (1.5 m3/s of the total 4 m3/s ).
Its plan consists of building a 65 km pipeline (and 1.4 m diameter) between the Tarragona and Olèrdola (Garraf) deposits, where there is already a pipeline of the ATLL system that comes from Masquefa, so that it would be linked with the distribution point in the Barcelona region. The water is now coming towards the south and it would be a matter of being able to push it towards the north. It would be a reversible conduction: it is pumped upwards and it would fall downwards by gravity since Masquefa is at a higher altitude.
The total budget for the pipeline would be 275 million euros, without counting VAT or the cost of expropriations.
These schools already launched their idea in December but in a less elaborate way and considering an estimated completion period between 12 and 18 months.
The plan could be a reality in eight months, says Xavier Minguillón, author of the plan and member of the environmental committee of the College of Civil Engineers.
The initiative gains speed and shortens deadlines thanks to a strategy through which orders are grouped into nine lots or packages of works or supplies, the process is accelerated by resorting to experienced and geographically close companies, and a calendar with two days is proposed. eight-hour shifts on weekdays.
With the same purpose, the work would be divided into four sections, a specific lot is reserved (a critical point) to pass under various infrastructures (roads, railways…) and another for electrical connections.
One of the main complexities is the supply of equipment, so thought has also been given to grouping these purchases that are considered urgent. The idea is to quickly define needs and act with the same diligence to buy and manufacture.
The entire procedure would require an emergency declaration to overcome administrative procedures with direct hiring. “This is the fastest way to bring water to Barcelona. These are solutions that we are already used to doing,” Minguillón summarized.
This engineer argued that the work is “relatively simple” (there are “three pumps, a tube and three pumps,” he said graphically), since it does not have the complexity that the construction of a desalination plant entails. “If we are in an emergency we should act accordingly,” stressed Carles Conill, spokesperson for the Sequera Observatory.
Its promoters insist that this infrastructure would be reversible (it could be useful in the opposite direction to provide water from Ter-Llobregat to Tarragona, if necessary). It would be resorted to only in emergency cases and is configured as a structural and future solution.
The new pipeline could provide about 4 hm3 of water per month, more than half of what is now consumed with contributions from the rivers (7 hm3 per month), which would greatly delay the theoretical time in which the reservoirs would run out of water. . “This solution is the only one that could give us a relevant flow in the situation we face,” said Carles Conill.
Its promoters also assured that this interconnection is compatible with other solutions, such as new desalination plants (which would not be a reality before four years).
However, the proposal has already been rejected by the Government, but it remains alive to the extent that the drought has worsened and the main opposition party, the PSC, has not expressly expressed its opposition, probably because it thinks it cannot be discarded.
