Faced with the relentless drought, municipalities are looking for effective solutions. Sabadell City Council and the company CASSA (Aigües Sabadell) are promoting a network that will increase the use of regenerated and groundwater, coming from the treatment plant and underground, to reduce dependence on the purchase of drinking water and advance self-sufficiency. It is expected to recover about 2 cubic hm, the equivalent of 20% of the water consumed in the city in a year, which will be used for irrigation, street cleaning, cisterns or industrial processes.
This was explained today by the mayor, the socialist Marta Farrés, who announced that “an investment of more than two million euros” is expected. “In Sabadell we are pioneers in the use of regenerated water and we have come a long way. “This is a project that goes beyond the current drought, with a broader view,” she assured. Economic activity will be boosted, since “industries will be able to connect through pipes to the new network and use regenerated water for their operation.” This investment corresponds to a first phase.
According to municipal sources, in 2023, Sabadell increased the production of regenerated water by 73% compared to 2022. Last year, Aigües Sabadell supplied a total of 51,380 cubic meters of regenerated water from the Sant Pau de Riu-sec treatment plant, its historical maximum, the equivalent of more than 20 Olympic swimming pools or the water consumption of 1,500 residents of Sabadell and Sabadell in one year. This amount was distributed in the industrial and commercial estate of Sant Pau de Riu-sec and in the municipal services of street cleaning and irrigation for the survival of the city’s new trees, as well as in the agricultural and industrial sectors and surrounding municipalities.
Now, these possibilities will be expanded with the works that the City Council and Aigües Sabadell have been carrying out since July to bring regenerated water from Riu-sec to the Can Gambús neighborhood, connecting the southern and northern networks. The action, which involves an investment of 1.2 million euros, has a subsidy of 1 million euros from the Catalan Water Agency (ACA). In addition, work is already underway on future growth of the regenerated water network in strategic points of the city, within the framework of the public-private collaboration project Biotop.
The ACA and the AMB will create a supra-municipal network of reclaimed water upstream, originating in Sabadell. These resources could be used, for example, to irrigate the Bellaterra UAB campus, the green areas or other uses of the Alba de Cerdanyola Park. Works on the supra-municipal distribution network in the Vallès are expected to begin in 2025.