Date Published: 14/01/2020
ARCHIVED - Up to 40 per cent of tap water in Murcia this year will come from desalination plants
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Restrictions on the Tajo-Segura water supply canal divide opinion in the governing PSOE party
With the new Spanish government seemingly determined to limit the amount of water transferred from the headwaters of the Tajo in the centre of the country to the Segura basin, which includes almost all of the Region of Murcia, the Mancomunidad de Canales del Taibilla (MCT), the organization responsible for supplying tap and drinking water to the south-east of Spain, is anticipating a sharp increase this year in the amount of desalinated water consumed in households in the area.
The MCT, which provides domestic water to around 3 million people in Murcia, southern Alicante and parts of Albacete, expects a 4.5 increase in the demand for domestic water in 2020 to bring the figure up to 205.9 cubic hectometres. At the same time, though, it is likely that the amount of water arriving via the Tajo-Segura supply canal will drop after this source was responsible for meeting 44 per cent of demand in 2019, with the rest accounted for by transfers from the River Taibilla (24 per cent), desalination plants (31 per cent) and other sources (1 per cent).
More specifically, the amount of tap water to be provided by the desalination plants in San Pedro del Pinatar, Alicante, Águilas, Torrevieja and Valdelentisco (in Isla Plana) is projected to rise by around 40 per cent, and in consequence more municipalities as far inland as Cieza, Totana and Alhama de Murcia, for example, are to be among the beneficiaries.
But the MCT is keen to stress that this will not mean an increase in domestic water bills, despite water from the desalination plants being around 4 times more expensive than water from the supply canal.
Meanwhile, the issue of the transfer canal continues to be a controversial one, with irrigation farmers in Murcia hoping to avoid a repeat of the scenario in December when they were effectively excluded from the transfer decided upon for the month. In addition, the matter is becoming a politically complicated one for the new national PSOE government: the leader of the party in the Region of Murcia, Diego Conesa, and the president of the regional government of the Comunidad Valenciana (including Alicante) made a joint statement on Monday describing the canal as “fundamental and an inalienable right”, making their opposition to what appears to be the policy of the Ministry of Ecological Transition quite clear.
Click here for an analysis of the inherent water “deficit” in Murcia, the reliance on the Tajo-Segura and how it has come about.
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