The electoral result of May 12 may leave Catalonia in such an uncertain scenario that it forces the elections to be repeated. If this augury is fulfilled, the current Government will continue in office and will have to manage the emergencies of the summer, starting with the drought. When President Pere Aragonès called the elections, it was pointed out that the electoral advance benefited ERC because it would be spared criticism of the management of water restrictions. “This chicken will be eaten by another”, they said. But the political panorama that the polls show for after 12-M points out that “the chicken” will be eaten by the current Executive while the investiture of a president is being negotiated. That is why a plan has been activated to reduce civil damage from the drought that could discredit ERC’s options to continue governing.
In this way, we have gone from the “Campi qui pugi” plan, which we were referring to here a few weeks ago, to another one that could be called “Not a shot in the foot”. This plan consists of softening the planned restrictions, adopting solutions born from the civil sphere that were initially demonized and helping the municipalities to take measures that relieve their neighbors.
This would explain the Government’s change, which is replacing tankers with desalination plants. The option of desalination proposed by the hotel sector was described as a coincidence and, later, criminalized. But now it has been adopted by the Generalitat to avoid the closing of the taps on the Costa Brava and in Barcelona with a clever speech that talks less about benefiting tourists and more about guaranteeing the supply of residents (voters) who live all year round in thirsty areas
The three barriers that were insurmountable a few months ago are irrelevant today because there is the greater good of making it easier for people to drink. First of all, the high energy consumption for the desalination plants to work is no longer a problem. Nor is the environmental impact of brine, which is the residue that causes desalination, an impediment. “The brine does not affect any animal species or biodiversity”, categorically stated the Minister of Climate Action on Thursday. And finally, the impossibility of directly connecting desalinated water to the public network has been officially denied. Welcome to common sense, if only to avoid drowning at the polls.
On the other hand, the barbarity of hiring pitcher boats has been discarded because, after some obvious calculations that everyone knew, desalination plants are half as cheap and generate twice as much water. Therefore, it will be the Generalitat itself that will start by renting thirteen, including a floating desalination plant in the port of Barcelona. We have gone from the pitcher boat to the salt barge. After saving all the aforementioned prejudices, the solution to the drought is progressing more quickly and the proposal also indicated in these lines last month to enable desalination plants in the 45 ports of the Catalan coast that depend on the Generalitat is proving viable.
But before that, the mayors will have to be reassured after the Generalitat has given them the chance to decide which swimming pools are considered climate shelters. For municipal swimming pools there will be no problem, but many councils have a queue of communities of neighbors with swimming pools waiting for permission to use them, either as a climate shelter, unfeasible with the regulations at hand, or thanks to some other exception . The Generalitat has put the mayors in a mess, who have to ensure compliance with the less and less clear restrictions dictated by the Government. What they do know is that they will not put water police to fine anyone who swims in a pool this summer. The patrol will have other different tasks to photograph residents in bathing suits.
