The residents of Palma de Gandia, a town of 1,900 inhabitants in the interior of La Safor, have not been able to drink tap water since October 11 of last year. To brush their teeth, wash vegetables or clean a bottle they have to use bottled water. A circumstance that has disrupted their lives and that has no easy solution (it is not expected that they will be able to drink from the tap until summer) nor a cheap one.
Compromís deputy Vicent Marzà asked about this issue in the last control session in Les Corts, who denounced the inaction of the regional government and the lack of response to the dozens of letters from neighbors asking for help. The Minister of Environment, Water and Infrastructure, Salomé Pradas, replied that the Executive is working on it and that the problem has been going on for a long time and that the left did nothing to solve it.
The mayor of Palma de Gandia, Paula Femenia (Compromís), explains to La Vanguardia that the Sant Miquel water well from which the municipality was supplied was declared unfit for consumption in 2019. As a temporary solution, an agreement was signed with the neighboring municipality of Ador to connect to its network provisionally and as long as both locations could be supplied. However, the mayor says, in 2023, due to Ador network problems, this drive was canceled leaving the residents of Palma without water in their mouths. Since October 11, the water is no longer drinkable.
The difficulties are evident for the almost 1,500 residents who were connected to this network (there are urbanizations with another connection that have been spared), but also for industries and businesses such as the oven or the bars of the municipality that consume more water. Since then, Femenia explains, the neighbors have been supplied with two and a half liters a day through 5-liter jugs. Before, a delivery was made four days a week, but now it has been reduced to two (Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.).
"In the town we all know each other, just come up and give your name and surname and the place where you live," says the first mayor. Businesses and industries are given an extra 15 bottles per week (75 liters).
The problem is that this formula does not work for companies like Coques de Dacsa Susana, an industry that produces the area's traditional corn cokes and which, explains its owner, Susana Serra, consumes 1,500 liters a week to produce 6,000-7,000 cokes a day. that it did before the water crisis.
Serra spoke to this newspaper a day after Thursday's distribution where he did not receive the 15 bottles he expected to have because "there were no leftovers." She tells how the situation has affected her "100%" although she prefers not to do numbers so as to "not get sick." Water is her raw material because to make the cocas she has to boil a large amount of water before making the dough.
That is another handicap because the bottled is at room temperature and boiling it from that temperature means a delay in production. "It costs me twice as much to make them," he explains while pointing out that, to all the extra expenses, he has had to add the purchase of more machinery to try to maintain the production rate and meet his clients.
Faced with this complicated situation, the mayor of Palma de Gandia complains that they have asked the administrations for help and direct and nominative help to the Provincial Council of Valencia without success. The provincial institution refutes that the Pla Obert d'Inversions for the next four years foresees an investment in Palma de Gandia of 1,036,000 euros, 220,000 euros more than in the last legislature. To this, she argues, we must add the part that she will receive from the Municipal Cooperation Fund, which in the last legislature greatly exceeded half a million euros.
However, the mayor doubts that this money can be used on this issue. The City Council, at the moment, the only solution it has found is to connect to the well of the Mancomunidad de la Safor that is in Villalonga, for which a pipeline of more than one million euros is necessary, explains Femenia. If we take into account that the City Council's budget is barely 1.9 million and more than half goes to chapter 1 of personnel expenses, we can see the investment that this represents for a town hall as small as Palma de Gandia.
Despite this, after a financing agreement with its water manager, the City Council has managed to finance the work that has already begun to be built, with the idea of being able to have water again in the summer, when the town's population grows and, In addition, more water is consumed. However, this work is not free for residents who have to pay 6.26 euros per month on their bill for 25 years (more than 1,870 euros), unless the City Council first finds a source of financing that allows this to be amortized. investment and reduce the years of mortgage.
