With the drought worsening and the prohibition in part of Catalonia (224 municipalities of the Ter-Llobregat system and the Fluvià Muga aquifer, in 15 counties) to fill swimming pools, in force since March, companies that transport drinking water in tanker trucks are receiving with the arrival of the heat an avalanche of requests from individuals. Owners of houses with pools who are looking for a way to have water in their pool before the summer.
The Government announced that it will allow the filling of “public access” swimming pools, municipal and community ones, as they are “climate shelters”. But not the private pools of private homes.
One of the companies, Aguatrans, established in El Vallès, in the metropolitan area, is receiving between 150 and 200 calls from individuals every day, according to RAC1 yesterday. The average to fill a private pool is about 50 cubic meters of drinking water. In the largest, in urbanizations or in neighboring communities, this figure can be quadrupled.
Part of the requests come from municipalities in areas affected by the Generalitat's drought plan in the exceptional phase, which expressly prohibits filling swimming pools in houses. "We look at the map of the Government and if they are in a municipality with a red traffic light, we tell them that we cannot transport drinking water to fill their pool," explains Carles Esteve, in charge of the Maddle company, located in the Tarragona area. In his case, they receive about thirty calls a day.
They haven't stopped calling for two weeks. The client already knows that we cannot fill the pool with drinking water if it is in a prohibited area, but they try it”, explains Gervasio Martínez (Aguatrans). In municipalities in an exceptional situation "no pool can be filled under any circumstances", recalls the ACA. The limitation applies to all sources of water, be it potable, from the general network, from wells or other collections, "including tanker trucks," he adds.
Most of the municipalities where swimming pools cannot be filled are in the province of Barcelona, three out of four, but the veto also affects part of the Girona region. A population of six million residents, with several thousand private pools.
The companies specialized in the transport of drinking water assure that they are prioritizing the sending of tanker trucks to municipalities that have supply problems, which is why they are saying no to most requests to fill swimming pools, even if they come from municipalities where it is legal. do it.
Preference is then given to individuals who need to fill tanks with drinking water in areas that are running out of drinking water due to drought, in houses far from urban centers.
Dozens of Catalan municipalities are already requiring drinking water tanker trucks to be able to supply their neighbors. There is no up-to-date register on a Catalan scale of the towns that find themselves in this situation. A total of 27 city councils have already contracted tanker trucks before the second half of 2022: nine in the province of Lleida, eight in Tarragona, seven in Barcelona and three in Girona. The ACA gives the aid after the municipalities contract and pay for the transportation of drinking water. The list of towns with cisterns has been growing due to the drought.
Precisely, the growing demand for tanker trucks to transport drinking water is forcing companies to increase services and trips. The Maddle company calculates that it is transporting 550,000 liters of drinking water per day. A small part are swimming pools.
Yes, they are filling swimming pools with tanker trucks in the municipalities where it is allowed, such as in the Camp de Tarragona. In these cases, the calendar has been brought forward due to the fear of individuals of the extension of the restrictions. “Before, we used to start filling pools around San Juan every year, not in April,” adds Maddle.
A part of the demand to fill swimming pools comes from municipalities where it is legal to do so because they are outside the exceptional situation. Other individuals fill the pool here with running water that reaches their homes.
Some of the individuals in the area where it is prohibited ask the tanker truck companies to do so even with sea water. “They want water of whatever so that their pool does not break; we bring seawater to swimming pools that have been empty for a long time”, adds Martínez (Aguatrans). With the heat, if many months pass, cracks may appear.
Pools must be filled with drinking water if you want to comply with health regulations. Some companies offer, however, the possibility of transporting "water for swimming pools".
