The Department of Climate Action will publish in January the tender for the construction project of a water regeneration plant at the Reus (Tarragona) Waste Water Treatment Plant (EDAR). The initiative will initially be carried out through the Catalan Water Agency (ACA).
The will of Acció Climàtica is that the project will be carried out during 2024 and the works will be executed throughout 2025.
This is one of the demands that the Riudecanyes Reservoir Irrigation Community (CRPR) made this Tuesday to have water for the cultivation of the 4,000 hectares it supplies.
Currently, the Reus WWTP wastes between five and six cubic hectometers (hm3) of water annually, according to the irrigators.
In October 2021, the ACA presented a project with an estimated cost of 28 million euros to regenerate water from the WWTP, which would allow irrigators to have more availability and not have to depend so much on the Riudecanyes reservoir, which with the drought current is below minimums.
To complete this entire cycle, apart from the regenerative plant, a connection would also have to be made between the WWTP and one or two ponds that should be built to store the water. Finally, the rafts should also be linked to the CRPR network, so that they can distribute them among their members. For now, it is not ruled out that all these works will be carried out in parallel with the construction of the WWTP regenerative plant.
The initial plans presented two years ago by the ACA spoke of taking advantage of about 1.58 cubic hectometers annually. Of these, 0.17 would be allocated to urban uses in the city of Reus, mainly the irrigation of green areas. The remaining 1.41 will be for CRPR irrigation.
If everything materialized, Riudecanyes would not have to capture so much water from the Siurana reservoir and this rebound would make it possible to increase the ecological flow of the Siurana river.
