The Generalitat's decision to prohibit the filling of private swimming pools with fresh water has an impact on the sector that is dedicated to the construction, maintenance and repair of swimming pools, an activity that generates a business volume of around 1.5 billion euros. The Spanish headquarters of the European network of independent professionals in the swimming pool sector, the Hydrosud Group, figures between 20% and 30% of the fall in the construction of swimming pools in the last year as a result of the anti-drought measures.
Despite the fact that in recent weeks the Generalitat has relaxed some of these restrictions, such as allowing the use of water from private desalination plants to maintain the economic viability of companies linked to the tourism sector, private swimming pools remain on the sidelines for the time being of this exception. With the law in hand, they cannot be filled, unless it is with sea water and they are emptied without connection to the sanitation network so as not to harm the operation of the treatment plants.
Beyond the decline in sales, the sector has also noticed a sharp slowdown in orders. "Waiting for what happens, we have had many budgets paralyzed for months, there are many people lost who don't know what to do, or with the pool half-built", explains Jordi Julià, head of the Groupe Deco company, based in Agullana, and president of the Hydrosud Group, an entity that is part of the Spanish employers' association for the swimming pools sector in Spain (Asofap).
The professional notes some paradoxical and "incongruous" situations that have existed in this drought scenario. He explains the case of a customer who wanted to carry out repair work on the pool tank and who hired a boot to extract the water while the operators did the work. Once the work was completed, he could not fill the vessel with the water he had previously extracted.
The professionals consider that there are "realistic, viable and respectful proposals" with regard to the drought and the environment that the Generalitat should allow to guarantee "the survival of the sector". Among other things, they propose allowing the use of fresh water from desalination plants, wells, mines and rivers in areas or countries where there is no shortage of the resource, such as France and Aragon. "The Administration is preventing us from this solution, when there is no legal motivation to justify it", affirms Julià.
They also consider it "nonsense" that the excess water from the Ebro is not allowed to be used and they also propose as a shock measure that it is allowed to collect water from the mouth before it ends up in the sea, by placing collection points at a distance of between 200 and 500 meters from the sea.
The swimming pool construction and repair sector has more than 600 companies in Catalonia, many of which are family-run. This is the case of Piscines Vilabertran, where almost half of the workers are part of the same family. Cristina López recognizes a fall in the volume of construction in the last year, after the boom caused by covid. "Last year we already noticed a recession and this year we see that people have a lot of doubts", he acknowledges, and highlights how the demands for swimming pools that work with sea water have grown, even though the investment is much greater, as well as the adaptations of the machinery to the use of salt water.
In Aiguapolis Figueres they also attend to almost more questions than sales. "The only option for now is to fill the swimming pools with sea water, but we demand a definitive solution that allows us to go look for water in places where there is no drought", says Víctor Blasco, who puts the drop at 20% in construction According to the Spanish Association of Professionals in the Pool Sector (Asofap), fresh water in Spain's swimming pools represents 0.5% of the total water supplied.
