The electoral result of May 12 could leave Catalonia in a scenario so uncertain that it forces the elections to be repeated. If this prediction comes true, the current Government will remain in office for a few months and will have to manage the emergencies of the summer, starting with the drought. When President Pere Aragonès called the elections, it was noted that the early elections benefited ERC because it would avoid criticism of the management of restrictions due to the lack of water. “This brown one will be eaten by someone else,” they said. But the outlook presented by the polls for after 12-M indicates that “the brown bag” will be eaten by the current Executive while the investiture of a president is being negotiated. That is why a plan has been activated to minimize the political damage of the drought that could discredit ERC's options to continue governing.
In this way, we have gone from the “Every man for himself” plan, which we referred to here a few weeks ago, to another that could be called “Not one shot in the foot.” This plan consists of easing the planned restrictions, adopting solutions born from the civil sphere that were initially demonized, and helping municipalities to take measures that relieve their neighbors.
This would explain the Government's shift in changing tankers for desalination plants. The desalination option proposed by the hotel sector was described as an occurrence and, later, criminalized. But now it has been adopted by the Generalitat to avoid the closing of the taps on the Costa Brava and in Barcelona with a successful speech that speaks less about benefiting tourists and more about guaranteeing the supply of residents (voters) who live all year round. year in thirsty areas.
The three barriers that were insurmountable a few months ago are irrelevant today because there is the greater good of making it easier for people to drink. Firstly, the high energy consumption to operate desalination plants is no longer a problem. Nor is the environmental impact of brine, which is the waste caused by desalination, an impediment. “The brine does not affect any animal species or biodiversity,” the Acció Climàtica councilor stated categorically on Thursday. And finally, the impossibility of directly connecting desalinated water with the public network has been officially denied. Welcome to common sense, even if it is to avoid drowning at the polls.
On the other hand, the barbarity of chartering botijo boats has been discarded because, after some obvious calculations that everyone knew, desalination plants are half as cheap and generate twice as much water. So it will be the Generalitat itself who will start by renting thirteen, including a floating desalination plant in the port of Barcelona. We have gone from the botijo boat to the salt barge. After overcoming all the aforementioned prejudices, the solution to the drought is advancing faster and the proposal also outlined in these lines last month, to enable desalination plants in the 45 ports on the Catalan coast that depend on the Generalitat, is proven viable.
But first the mayors will have to be reassured after the Generalitat has handed over to them the responsibility of deciding which swimming pools are considered climate refuges. For municipal swimming pools there will be no problem, but many City Councils have a queue of neighborhood communities with swimming pools waiting for permission to use them either as a climate shelter, which is not feasible with the regulations in hand, or thanks to another exceptionality. The Generalitat has gotten the mayors into trouble, who must ensure the increasingly unclear restrictions of the Government. What they are clear about is that they will not have water police to fine anyone who bathes in a pool. The patrol will have other tasks other than photographing their neighbors in swimsuits.
