The Minister of Climate Action of the Generalitat, David Mascort, has confirmed that, if the current drought emergency phase persists in summer, the municipal pools will not be able to be filled. However, he has opened the door to studying exceptions to this general rule if any of these facilities serve as the only climatic refuge in the area. The measure would entail a new modification of the Generalitat's special drought plan.
“Let's imagine that in a neighborhood there is no library, reading room or air-conditioned spaces to take refuge; In these cases we could study that the (municipal) pool becomes a climate refuge and then it could be filled. But under normal conditions it cannot be done,” the councilor explained in an interview on TV3 yesterday. To do this, Mascort indicated that “a census of climatic refuges” will be carried out to determine which pools could fall into the exception.
The current emergency phase due to drought, which affects the region of Barcelona and Girona, prohibits the filling of swimming pools with fresh water in all cases, which includes private swimming pools, hotels, campsites, gyms - except in some cases of federated sports. –, municipal and community.
Last summer the ban only affected private pools, but not municipal pools or hotel pools; but this summer, if the water situation does not improve, it may be different.
In this context, the tourism sector of Lloret de Mar has recently announced that it will buy a mobile desalination plant to supply and supply water to this town, which multiplies its population in summer, as happens in other municipalities on the Costa Brava. Regarding this initiative, the councilor highlighted that these situations “are not contemplated” in the Government's drought plan, so their fit into the legal norm will have to be studied.
Likewise, he has indicated that, to use sea water, "there must be an administrative concession from Costas, an authorization from the Catalan Water Agency and an environmental license depending on the volume they extract." Thus, we will have to see “the complete project” of the mobile desalination plant because “extracting 30,000, 1,500 or 500 m3” of sea water per day is not the same. “The technical conditions will determine whether it can be done or not, but to the extent possible we will try to make it possible,” said the councilor.
Meanwhile, the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, confirmed yesterday his “predisposition” to send water from the Sagunt desalination plant (owned by the central Administration) to Barcelona to combat the drought situation. “It will depend on the exact situation at the time the final decision is made, but the response of the Valencian Generalitat is favorable, of solidarity,” Mazón summarized.
On the other hand, environmental entities have considered that the Taula Nacional de l'Aigua “does not serve” to agree on the change of model in water management and have demanded from the Government a participatory space where they can debate and carry out structural changes in the water management.
In a joint statement, Aigua és Vida, Ecologistes en Acció de Catalunya and the other civic entities have considered that the ACA “is avoiding explaining the result of the measures adopted in the last three years in response to the drought and knowing whether or not the objectives have been met.” restrictions” In addition, they have regretted that the reduction of ecological flows in the Ter, Muga and Llobregat rivers “has been decided outside the National Water Authority and without any dialogue or agreement” with the organizations in defense of the natural environment .
