Turning on the tap and letting water flow is an unconscious gesture in the homes of almost all of Catalonia. This is not the case with Espluga de Francolí (Conca de Barberà). The nearly 3,700 inhabitants began to suffer cuts in the supply of drinking water in August 2022, every day with the exception of the weekend, from ten at night to seven in the morning.
Eight months have passed and what started as a temporary restriction to save the summer, between waves of heat, has become a norm. At night in l'Espluga the tap is turned off. Impossible to shower, scrub, wash dishes or put a washing machine on, unless you have a tank at home. To drink, bottled water if a carafe has not been filled.
At café bar Els Caçadors, like so many other local businesses, the bottles mark the day, at the rate of fifty liters of bottled water a day just for the coffee machine. "Tap water tastes bad, I don't like it. Not for the cat either, but that's my business", says Jonay Sánchez, one of the waiters, who explains how they do it. The bar is open until night but they can't wash or scrub anything after ten o'clock. "It is what it is, it is a sad situation for the whole town. There is resignation".
Drinking water has been arriving in the village in tanker trucks since the summer of 2022, when the wells began to fail, with the aquifers below minimum levels. While waiting for the long-awaited rains, the City Council cannot make any predictions as to when normality will be restored. In the town, water has obviously become the big topic of conversation. It is enough to walk through the streets and squares or have a coffee in one of the bars.
Resignation is the most shared feeling, but discomfort and a certain tiredness are also perceived. In addition to the lack of supply during the nights, the taste and appearance of the water has worsened due to shortages and interruptions. "The water now tastes bad and is a bit cloudy, I don't drink it", agrees Primitiva García, who arrived in l'Espluga 60 years ago. Although it is potable, many of the residents have chosen to drink bottled water now. Tap water, for cooking, cleaning or washing.
"We shower less," says 90-year-old Teodor Padilla, a taxi driver for three decades in Barcelona. Bottles of water are common in the shopping cart. "Now he's my taxi driver," says his wife.
The City Council of l'Espluga has made the issue of water a priority issue. The mayor, Josep Maria Vidal (Som l'Espluga), regrets that small municipalities are all alone in the face of a global challenge such as drought. "We talk about water when there is a very dire emergency and when it affects very large areas, but supra-municipal administrations have never seen it as a priority. We have a problem as a country", warns Vidal.
In the middle of a spontaneous gathering, next to Casal de l'Espluga, a neighbor greets and introduces himself. It is Francesc Sánchez, an opposition councilor who is running for mayor (28-M). "The problem does not come from now, but as we were the people of the water... Now we all have to run", he criticizes. "It will be the theme of the campaign", he says, before saying goodbye.
The actions taken by the City Council, such as the cuts and the hiring of tankers, have guaranteed the supply of drinking water. The municipal government is taking, in parallel, a set of actions to resolve the supply problem in the medium term. The most transcendent, the connection with the network that carries the water from the mini transfer of the Ebro to Tarragona. Despite the fact that the works have already been approved and budgeted for, the water from the Ebro will reach Espluga in the best case scenario in the fall of 2024. The City Council is also looking for new wells to improve its own water resources and has obtained funds from the European Union (500,000 euros) to renovate almost four kilometers of old pipes, some from the sixties, and put an end to the constant leaks. Some calculations estimate that around 200,000 liters of water are lost every day. The daily consumption of the entire town is 900,000 liters. "The improvement of the network will give us more water. We prioritize not losing a single drop of water", says the mayor.
Most of the losses, with repeated breakdowns, take place in the Carreras housing estate, where there is a concentration of fiber cement or polyethylene pipes. In one of its streets, two neighbors walk their dogs. "I put on a new tank. What choice! When I get home from work I want to take a shower", they explain. "Mine is 1,000 liters and has a pump to have more pressure. Our grandparents used to tell us, you need to have a tank at home", recalls the owner of the El Llagut fish shop.
Josep, known as Macario or Pep del Pou, has a 1,000 liter tank in the trailer of the van. "To be able to water my garden and for the dogs", he explains.
At one of the town's entrances is the ground zero of the historic floods of October 2019, when the Francolí River overflowed due to torrential rains and swept away part of the town and several businesses, with a balance of eight dead people swept away by the water, in various parts of the Conca de Barberà. Next to it are the Disset Fonts, seventeen outlets through which abundant water had always flowed. "Choose, you who passes, of all seventeen, if one or the other, playing with seven", say the verses of Josep Ferré, next to the fountains. They are now dry.
"We were the people of water", insists Primitiva. "We had never lacked water in Espluga, it has always come down from the Prades mountains," adds Clàudia Riart, another 85-year-old neighbor. "Now when I get up the first thing I do is look at the mountain", he explains. "Because? Because I'm afraid the forest will catch fire." It hasn't rained with gusto for 31 months.
