The Government does not want the central government to ignore the water problems in the Barcelona region. “It would be nice if the State helped us solve water deficits, as it has done in the past.” This is how Samuel Reyes, director of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), the entity in charge of hydrological planning in the Generalitat, expresses himself.
It therefore demands that the Central Executive participate in the financing of the major hydraulic works pending in Catalonia, and that they should undertake to address the structural deficit of water resources in the Barcelona region.
This deficit is quantified in the new Catalan hydrological plan until 2027, which will be approved by the Executive in two months. The law determines that when a hydrographic demarcation has a deficit, it must be the State -through the national hydrological plan- that specifies how this deficit should be solved and provide the means.
The Catalan river basin plan has identified this deficit “and now it is the State that must provide an answer,” say ACA sources.
And what are those great infrastructures to prevent future droughts? The Government’s planning foresees for the next five years the construction of a new desalination plant in the Tordera area, the fitting out of 25 regeneration plants to reuse wastewater and an increase in the purification of groundwater from the lower section of the Besòs. Likewise, it is planned to strengthen the water treatment plants in the metropolitan region.
According to this planning, the deficit of water resources (which mainly affects the Barcelona region) is 60 hm3, but it will triple to 190 hm3 in just over 25 years (horizon 2039-2045), due to the impacts of change weather and droughts.
For their part, the actions scheduled for the next five years are expected to cover almost 60% of these deficits.
All this hydrological planning is based on the fact that by 2027 the transfer of flows from the River Ter to Barcelona must be reduced by 55%, with which the metropolitan area must seek new resources of its own.
The draft for the Tordera desalination plant has already been drawn up, and Samuel Reyes believes this infrastructure could be finished by the end of 2025. At the same time, preliminary technical work would begin for the future desalination plant in the Foix area (whose location is yet to be specify), although the planning only foresees carrying it out from the year 2027.
It is also planned to increase the use of groundwater from the Besòs River, for which the current water treatment plant on the right bank will be expanded, using a reverse osmosis filter, and, at the same time, build more wells. And it will also study whether the surface water of the Besòs can be made drinkable, although this is something that, in any case, would not come into service for the next five years, but rather later.
On the other hand, Samuel Reyes explains that the Government is going to “insist again” before the Spanish Executive on the need for it to participate in financing the water deficits in Catalonia with Next Generation European funds.
“We believe that this financing should be provided through the State budget; not everything can fall on the receipt of water ”, he points out.
Two years ago, various Catalan water administrations and companies (ACA, AMB, ATL and Agbar) presented a document to the Government (Supply Guarantees in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region), which included these demands and, through it, , this intervention was claimed for the State to help the “water self-sufficiency of the metropolitan region”.
To improve the guarantee of supply and make a great technological leap, this document provides for expanding the desalination of sea water (with the Tordera and Foix plants), improving the potabilization processes in the large metropolitan faucets (Sant Joan Despí, Abrera, Besòs and Cardedeu), increase reuse in El Prat and Sant Feliu del Llobregat, enable a new water treatment plant to use surface water from Besòs (with a plant between La Llagosta and Sant Adrià) and promote reuse in the Besòs basin .
In total, an investment of 1,329 million euros was estimated, a sum that also included various digitization projects.
