Cervelló, Corbera and La Palma de Cervelló are the only three municipalities that are part of the Metropolitan Area of ??Barcelona (AMB) that exceed the limit of 230 liters per inhabitant per day set by the Generalitat of Catalonia in the current situation of exception due to drought. They don’t do it because of the lack of responsibility of their neighbors. The problem is leaks and problems in their supply networks. They have a complex orography because they are located in the mountains and filled with urbanisations. Full of single-family houses, some with swimming pools and gardens, they need many more kilometers of pipes to bring the most precious liquid to their homes. In addition, these systems are outdated and in urgent need of renewal. An operation that needs millions of investments that the municipalities alone cannot do.
“Our network is old and in bad shape”, acknowledges the acting mayor of Cervelló, José Ignacio Aparicio. Since the end of 2019, this town in the Baix Llobregat has had a plan to improve its water supply system. It requires an investment of approximately twelve million euros until 2044. But they haven’t started yet. There are several problems.
“Municipalities like ours cannot undertake investments like this”, laments the mayor. Cervelló has 9,307 inhabitants and an annual budget of 12.5 million, which like all municipal accounts go far beyond investments and include staff, services… water regeneration”, comments Aparicio. But they cannot address structural investments alone.
In the case of Cervelló there is another barrier. The service management contract with Sorea ended and they are currently in a forced extension situation. Aparicio explains that the new tender is stuck because now “the competition belongs to the AMB”. “We need a new tender or for the service to pass to the metropolitan mixed company”, adds the acting mayor, who regrets that “four years have been lost” since in his town they have the study that is the sheet route of actions to solve a problem that is getting longer.
In Cervelló, many of the houses and housing estates were built between 1950 and 1970, recalls the acting mayor. Those were other times. “Before it was possible to build in places where now it would not be allowed and materials were used that cannot be used now”, describes Aparicio. According to the AMB, almost 90% of the network there is more than 30 years old and 30% may be more than 50 years old. “Hopefully, with help from other administrations, the works won’t have to take so long,” Aparicio says.
“We have a network in a bad state, made with obsolete materials”, describes Lola Salmerón, councilor for Environment and Public Services. Salmerón regrets the “negligence” of previous governments when it came to “collaring the concessionaire”. “Now the situation is dramatic”, he says.
Corbera has around 30 housing estates. Salmerón recalls that some were carried out at times of “uncontrolled growth”, which makes things even more difficult because “approximately half are not received” and do not directly depend on the Consistory. He calculates that the cost of fixing the leakage situation in one of these developments can reach 1.5 million euros. Although he says that they have taken the problem “seriously”, it is unlikely that the local administration of a municipality of 15,210 inhabitants will be able to tackle it alone. They don’t have enough resources.
Cervelló and Corbera think that the Generalitat’s aid lines of 70 million will be “insufficient” to supply all of Catalonia.
