The La Concepción reservoir, which supplies water to the Western Costa del Sol, has gone from concentrate only 39.5% of its capacity to pour water in weeks, a situation of hydric stress that has decreased as a result of the latest rains, which today, Thursday, leave a volume of 41.26 cubic hectometres which account for 68.76% of the total.
The executive director of the public water company Acosol, Manuel Cardeña, explained that this Thursday the Junta de Andalucía has urged to “relieve” the La Concepción reservoir to clean “the different evacuation channels” given the forecast that rainfall will continue in the coming days, so it is expected that “by Monday or Tuesday the swamp will be practically at 100%”.
In this way, he has indicated that “if there continues to be rain, water will have to be unloaded, so that “right now they are preparing the different evacuation channels” as they are the Guadaiza River and the Verde River, a measure that aims to avoid a “collapse” at the mouth of the latter by forming a “sand barrier” and that these “work perfectly”.
Thus, the main source of water supply on the Costa del Sol It has happened in just a month of registering a situation of water scarcity which has led the Junta de Andalucía to decree a “drought emergency” in the region, in anticipation of taking over its capacity next week.
In this sense, it should be noted that the reservoir had the March 1 at 00:00 with 23.71 cubic hectometerswhich represents 39.51% of its total volume, while this Thursday, the 24th, 41.26 cubic hectometres had been stored at 00:00, which represents 68.76% of the reservoir’s capacity, which It is estimated at 60 cubic hectometres, according to the latest data published by the Red Hidrosur.
“Until this noon, water has been evacuated through the Guadaiza River and the Verde River to try to clean the channel and that there is no collapse at the end of those channels that are in the sea”, explained the executive director of Acosol, pointing out that it is done so that “there is no collapse with sand barriers that are formed in case much more water has to be unloaded in the near future”.
Cardeña recalled that the La Concepción reservoir “has several water evacuation channelswhich are rivers that go down to the sea like Guadaiza and Río Verde”, so now “it has been undammed water to try to prevent barriers from forming at the end of those riverbeds because obviously, since they did not have water, there was a lot of accumulation of sand at the end”.
From the Junta de Andalucía they have indicated that they have proceeded to release “a little water to clean the river plugs” to avoid further damage, emphasizing that the action “is within the normal operation of the dams in cases of heavy rains”.