Union of Farmers has urged the Generalitat and the State to approve the necessary actions and infrastructures to guarantee irrigation water to farmers in Camp de Tarragona.
The union has specified that in the case of woody crops these improvements must be approved on an emergency basis and must be accompanied by a sufficient budget to guarantee their survival.
He has also urged the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) and the Department of Climate Action to speed up the procedures and works so that the water treatment plants (EDAR) of Reus and Santa Oliva can reuse the water for agricultural uses.
In this sense, the ACA has awarded the drafting of the construction project for a Water Regeneration Station (ERA) at the Reus treatment plant.
The drafting of the ERA construction project has been awarded for around 202,000 euros and the equipment could treat around 20,000 cubic meters per day.
The project also includes the construction of a pipeline to a pond to store the regenerated water. It is precisely this water that farmers demand for irrigation, but there are no defined deadlines. In addition, the ACA plans to finance in 2026 the execution of the project to improve the biological treatment of the WWTP, budgeted at 2.2 million euros.
At the same time, the entity will allocate 1.6 million euros over three years to improve wastewater treatment at the WWTP, works that will be carried out by Aigües de Reus.
The money is distributed in three annuities: almost 689,000 euros in 2024, 500,000 in 2025 and 500,000 more in 2026.
Among the works that will be done this year is the replacement of the equipment and adaptation of the cogeneration plant, the improvement of the cyber monitoring system, the replacement of the filter press traction system, the comprehensive repair works of the secondary digester and carrying out a study for the implementation of a co-digestion system that allows producing more biogas and making the installation more self-sufficient from an energy point of view.
For Unió de Pagesos, another priority is for the Generalitat to speed up as much as possible the work on the projects presented by the climate action councilor, David Mascort, last January 14 in Falset, which should serve “to structurally resolve the water deficit in the Priorat and guarantee the continuity of agricultural activity”.
These are two projects: the transfer of water from the Ebro River from Garcia (Ribera d’Ebre) to the Guiamets and Siurana marshes and the project to connect the Margalef marsh with the irrigation network of the Garrigues-Sur canal.
