“We have to give a second and a third and fourth life to the water that magically disappears from our houses when we turn on the cistern. That reaches a treatment plant and can give infinite lives. “Basically replicating the water cycle”
Zouhayr Arbib, head of Aqualia’s Sustainability Area, raised this Wednesday at the 1st Lleida Water Forum the opportunities that water regeneration has. “The water we consume now, he said, is the same water that the dinosaurs consumed 95 million years ago. Virtually not a drop of the planet has escaped.”
Lleida is, from their point of view, a clear example of success because the water lost is very little compared to the national average. “It is true that it is not impressive to fix a pipe, it is more impressive to fix a reservoir but one thing is as important as the other.”
About 87% of the water that comes out of the distribution network in Lleida can be detected and quantified, a superior performance when compared to the average for the rest of the Spanish state, which is around 60 and 70%. This does not mean, according to Zouhayr Arbib, that the remaining water is lost, but rather that there are no mechanisms to quantify it efficiently.
For his part, the mayor of Lleida, Fèlix Larrosa, proposed this Thursday the use of gray water in new sectors of urban development in the city. The City Council will promote a review of the urban planning ordinances to promote that homes in the new residential development sectors of the city can incorporate water reuse mechanisms, such as double conduction systems. The proposal will be sent to the municipal groups for debate within the framework of the Water Pact, indicated Larrosa, who will also propose that some of the investments of the water supply concessionaire company be also used to study water reuse projects. .
In the forum, in which some 50 experts participated, Larrosa expressed his satisfaction with the city’s water consumption, the lowest in 20 years, 197 liters per person per day.
“We are better than other areas that are in an emergency situation and that are forced to take drastic measures to reduce water consumption. Without having to adopt these emergency measures we are already doing it. Therefore, good luck to the people of Lleida! The work is being done well and in this sense we should be proud that this is the case.”
Larrosa explained that the proposals that have emerged from this forum refer to the use of water in the industrial field. He said that some businessmen have suggested to him that the regulations could be modified to be able to reuse the water that is used in certain industrial processes, for example for cleaning packaging or fruit in the agri-food sector, and which must now be thrown away.
Xavier Amores, director of the Catalan Water Partnership, Catalonia’s water cluster, has promoted investments in the digitalization of the water cycle to better manage its use and the need to reuse water to take advantage of it for industrial uses.
