Living on the costa

The Junta de Andalucía, the Commonwealth of Municipalities of the western Costa del Sol and the public company Acosol have signed an act this Thursday that allows the recovery of the project to improve the Water Treatment Station (ETAP) of Río Verde, in Marbella, which will have an investment of 20 million euros, as well as expecting the works on the city’s desalination plant to be completed before the summer of 2024, according to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Carmen Crespo.

This has been highlighted by the regional manager in a visit you have made to the desalination plantwhere she was accompanied by the Andalusian Government delegate in Malaga, Patricia Navarro, and the mayoress of Marbella, Ángeles Muñoz.

During her speech, the regional manager indicated that this station “is going to give possibilities in water quality and conduction”an infrastructure that he has valued as “essential to this area” and that dates back to 1972.

The counselor recalled that in 2008 “a project began to be carried out, but it was never heard of again”, for which reason the Board has agreed with the Mancomunidad and with Acosol on an important initiative for the future of the area.

Crespo, has indicated that “we want to get fully involved in a preliminary project that the Commonwealth is going to do and that later from the Board we will award the project and work”, which will have a investment “around 20 million”.

The desalination plant will double its capacity after the works

On the other hand, the counselor has highlighted that the work to improve the desalination plant in Marbella, which has already begun, will double the capacity of the plantwhich is currently “from 5 to cubic hectometres and we are going to convert it from 10 to 12”.

“We doubled the capacity giving water and possibilities to this areawhich currently has a greater capacity and we are giving it the maximum”, pointed out the counselor, who has detailed that the works “fall within the last and third decree of drought”.

Crespo has stated that the Board expects that the works of the desalination plant “are finished before the summer of next year”, so that in the summer period there is “that additional water possibility” and everyone can breathe easy despite the drought”.

As he has detailed, the works “allow having that capacity of 12 cubic hectometres for a desalination plant that is essential for the interests of the citizens of the Costa del Sol, with “527,000 inhabitants”, and that “is not the reality here, with specific moments of more than 1 million”.

“Right now, we all have the firm purpose of water balance”, remarked the person in charge of Agriculture, while recalling that for this “we are using the possibilities of the future with reclaimed water, making connections such as the Churriana baipass” -which will allow “the conduction of water from the capital to this area and from it to the capital”-, desalination and efficient irrigation.

For his part, Navarro recalled the investment made in recent years by the Department of Agriculture on the Costa del Sol and the province of Malaga, with a total of 304 million euros“knowing that here were the great needs of water resources and improvement of hydraulic facilities.”

The mayoress assures that Marbella registers savings of 7%

The mayoress of Marbella has indicated that next week the City Council will hold a drying table on July 12, where “they will be sitting from the public and private spheres to see the application of the different decrees that are being taken by the Board.

Regarding the situation of the municipality, Muñoz has pointed out that “we have a 100% supply”, and in relation to the reduction of consumption by 10%, he has assured that “the City Council has 7%, fundamentally around the use of sources that are recyclable and the use of non-potable wells for irrigation”.

“These are measures that allow us to move forward and we are now very close to reaching that percentage that the Board marked, and from there, with that water table to continue working jointly with the decrees that are being put into operation” by the regional Administration, he has detailed.