The region of Barcelona, areas of Girona and Costa Brava have been victims of three droughts that explain the current emergency: meteorological or climatic, hydrological investments and available executable projects to face emergency situations.
The triple crisis in turn leaves us three lessons. First, politicians must stop looking to a saving sky, trusting that rain will fill the reservoirs and increase the resources of desalination plants and regenerated water. Second, the proposals to connect the Barcelona metropolitan network with the Ebro network in Tarragona – despite their solid support – have harsh detractors, such as the Ebre Defense Platform or Aragon.
And third, state solidarity will be expressed with an unexpected circle: the two large desalination plants that the central Administration will build (Tordera II and Foix) will be financed with a loan from the Next Generation funds that will be returned by the Catalans in the water bill.
The drought crisis is a consequence of a very long period (40 months) of low rainfall that has left reservoir reserves at minimum levels. Now the Ter and Llobregat reservoirs are at 19% and are experiencing a slight recovery thanks to the rains of the last two weeks.
But along with climatic reasons, the lack of response is due to non-compliance with planning. Catalonia is paying the effects of not having implemented planned infrastructure at the time. By 2015, two desalination plants were to be in service: Tordera II and Foix, which also did not enter service in the second planning cycle (2016-2021).
Because? After the 2007-008 drought, all the Government's efforts focused on repaying the debt contracted by the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) to face urgent works (debt that reached 1.3 billion euros).
In the trunk of memories were the contributions from the public budgets, necessary to undertake the desalination plants that are missing today. And there was no state aid either.
But even recently, when the ACA completed the repayment of the debt (2017) thanks to the water fee, the Government's investments in hydraulic works were not up to the needs yet to be covered.
And so, a decade of investment drought was followed by a long period of governments without leadership, without memory of the previous drought and marked by the administrative constraints imposed by austerity laws.
The income from the water fee fueled treasury surpluses in the ACA that were much larger than the volume of projects that a poorly oiled administrative machinery was capable of promoting. Only in the most recent stage, with the alarms on, is an accelerated response dynamic perceived.
But construction projects available to act urgently have been missing. "And retrospective planning has had to be applied," says expert Joan Gaya with apt irony.
The triple drought has been combated with drastic reductions in water supplies for the different uses of water (agricultural, industrial, municipal), planned to save essential basic domestic consumption. But if there have not been more severe restrictions, it has been thanks to the El Prat desalination and regeneration plant, which were already ready before 2010. 55% of the water consumed in the Barcelona area today is non-conventional resources (desalinated waters and regenerated returned to the Llobregat in Molins de Rei to be reused).
The future path outlined should follow this line, along with new uses in the Besòs and the recovery of contaminated aquifers.
The Government had a well-defined special drought plan, a very valid basic instrument for programs with water restrictions for different uses. But the convulsive application of this plan has shown ERC why it could not govern alone. Conflict was inevitable. The municipalities managed to have their fines for excess consumption reduced. The world of sports also achieved more flexible measures. And farmers took to the streets in full force in protests against the EU's green agenda.
And, in addition, they started promises from Minister David Mascort that he would make changes to the ACA, unfairly accused of being responsible for the restrictions, and that he would change the name of the Climate Action department in an attempt to contain the protest.
After these decisions, broad social sectors (the platform El Futur és Ara, Network for the Conservation of Nature, Creaf scientists, naturalists...) see even more reasons to create a "true Department of Ecological Transition with the rank of vice president , independent and not conditioned by agricultural lobbies".
These criticisms are supported by the fact that the ERC mandate ends key unmet ecological goals: the expansion of areas to protect birds in the Llobregat delta (in response to the EU file for the defective expansion of the El Prat airport ago 20 years), the permanent blockade of the Nature Agency (approved by the Parliament in 2020), the brake on the tax on large ships established by the Canvi Climàtic law (2017) or the forgetting of the Residus law.
There have been three droughts and quite a few gaps.
