“Water rates have to go up; "There is no way around it," says the director of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), who has been convinced that the current rates are insufficient to cover the costs of supply and have excessively cheap prices, especially if compare to the price of bottled water.
Samuel Reyes encouraged those responsible for the water companies in Catalonia to increase water rates to face the increasing costs of this service. He spoke in this regard during a speech at a conference on good municipal practices in drought management in the context of the current drought, organized by the Catalan Water Partnership.
“It makes no sense that a cubic meter of water costs less than 50 cents when a bottle of water in the supermarket already costs 50 cents and is 33 centiliters,” he noted.
His explanation continued like this: “We have a year ahead of us. The September and October ordinances are beginning to be processed; and, therefore, I encourage you to reflect in all these months...”, he said, inviting prices to be updated, according to statements collected exclusively by Catalunya Ràdio.
Reyes' argument is that the costs of water should be passed on to the users of the service, thus assuming the criteria of the cost recovery principle. “The rates have to go up. There's no turning back. It's that easy. Rates must go up. Water in a Priorat municipality costs 10 cents per cubic meter. A cubic meter is 1000 liters, 10 cents, 1000 liters! “He added.
“Just making it drinkable already costs 10 cents depending on where the water comes from, but to this we must add the cost of transporting it or maintaining the pipes, propelling them, pumping them…”
