Desalinated water brings good and bad news for Murcia and Alicante farmers

Output at the Torrevieja plant is to be tripled while those receiving water from Valdelentisco are fined

Farmers in Murcia are continuing to suffer the effects of the ongoing three-year drought which has affected the basin of the River Segura, and this week have received both good and bad news regarding the water supply in the short- and medium-term future.

On the positive side, Francisco Jódar, the minister for Agriculture and Water in the regional government, visited the desalination plant in Torrevieja (in the province of Alicante, but also in the Segura basin), and confirmed that the intention at the facility is to double output from the current level of 40 cubic hectometers in 2017 to 80 hm3 next year. In addition, by 2019 he revealed that the aim is to reach a figure of 120 cubic hectometers, or three times the current level.

However, Sr Jódar also stressed that even when the Torrevieja plant is operating at full capacity this will not be enough to compensate in full for the “hydrological deficit” (or lack of water) in the Segura basin, and that other measures are also being considered in order to counteract this shortfall. In this context he referred to the new dam and reservoir which are to be built by State-owned hydrological management company Acuamed in the Rambla de las Moreras in Mazarrón, an infrastructure which will benefit farmers in the immediate area.

The water from Las Moreras will be added to supplies from normal sources as well as treated waste water, alleviating the plight of agriculturalists in Mazarrón and parts of the Campo de Cartagena, and at the same time improvements are also to be made at the reservoirs of Lébor and Camarillas.

But alongside this good news it has also emerged that all of the farmers who have received water from the Valdelentisco desalination plant in Isla Plana this year are to be fined by the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura (CHS) on the grounds that they do not hold the requisite licences which formally allow them to do so. Having purchased the water in good faith, they are thus to be punished for an administrative error which they maintain is not their fault, but is the responsibility of the CHS itself.

What will hurt the farmers most is not the 123 fines themselves, some of which will amount to no more than 1,200 euros, but the fact that the order has also been given for supplies to be cut off forthwith. This could result in crops being lost completely, and at the same time there is considerable bitterness at the fact that, according to Acuamed, the appropriate licences were requested years ago, and it is only as a result of the slowness in granting them that the fines have been imposed.

Image: Francisco Jódar (centre) during his visit to Torrevieja