Thursday 17^th November 2016

Calvià bets on regenerated water as an alternative to drinking water in irrigation and urban uses

The conference "The management of the urban water cycle: challenges and proposals" shows a high and interesting participation by municipalities, entities and companies in the sector

The municipal government team of Calvià makes a firm commitment to the use of regenerated water in certain uses, such as agricultural irrigation, irrigation in green areas and other urban uses. In this sense, the water treatment plant at Bendinat, which at present is the only one having water regeneration systems, already provides water for the irrigation of the whole Calvià promenade, and soon will begin the actions that will provide these systems to the water treatment plants of Santa Ponça and Calvià, along with the extension of the pipeline that will bring this water to a greater number of irrigation points.

This is one of the main contributions made by the Deputy Mayor of Calvià and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Calvià 2000, Andreu Serra, at the inauguration of the Conference "The management of the urban water cycle: challenges and proposals". National debate forum that has taken place in Calvià.

The meeting brought together national experts in the comprehensive water cycle, such as Francesc La-Roca, professor at the Universitat de València, and Luis Babiano, manager of AEOPAS (Spanish Association of Public Water Operators) or Julia Martínez, executive director of the FNCA (New Water Culture Foundation); to managers of public water companies, such as Emaya and the organiser, Calvià 2000; and to consumers, such as Alfonso Rodríguez Sánchez, responsible for institutional relations of Consubal (Consumers and Users of the Balearic Islands).

Francesc La-Roca has exposed the need to address a model change in the water management, in the current climate change context. This change would result in the recovery of ownership of the water service, as well as its universality, economic, environmental and social sustainability; and governance, a concept that refers to the participation of citizens in the management.

For her part, the manager of Emaya, Imma Mayol, explained that, in her opinion, the budget for the desalination plant is "excessive" – the expense has gone from 3 millions to 8.6 millions - and that "recently, the economic management has been put ahead of the sustainable management, which means a short-term" that can not be maintained.

The fee system has been another topic discussed on the day. Most present has agreed that it can be a good system of modulation of the demand, as long as they are well designed. Rodríguez Sánchez, on the other hand, was not very favourable to a fee increase and instead opted to introduce variables related to the income when calculating the final rates.