Andalusian government puts Axarquía irrigation contract out to tender

The Junta de Andalucía has put out to tender contract to supply up to 9.15 cubic hectometres of regenerated water per year to be made available to irrigators in Axarquía from the Peñón del Cuervo treatment plant in Málaga city, which bring water to the Rincón de la Victoria and Vélez-Málaga plants once work to connect the pipes is completed. The Official Bulletin of the Junta de Andalucía (BOJA) of 27 July published the details of the tender.

The work, which began last February at an estimated cost of 42 million euros, is in its final stages and is expected to be completed in September. However, it will not be until November that growers will have access to these water resources, to which an additional two hectometres from the Rincon wastewater treatment plant will be added.

According to the BOJA, the maximum annual volume will be 9,150,000 cubic metres, with a maximum instantaneous flow of 290.14 litres per second. The area affected is 2,708.8 hectares, making a total of 7,205.51 hectares of mainly subtropical (mango and avocado) crops, but also greenhouses and other fruit trees. Any companies interested in bidding have until 27 August to do so.

The recently constituted Junta Central de Usuarios de la Axarquía, which brings together some twenty irrigation communities in the area to the left bank of the Guaro river, totalling more than 3,000 hectares, has told SUR that it also intends to submit a bid. However, these irrigators say that their farms are further away from the point where the pipeline being built by the regional administration ends, meaning that if they are awarded the contract, they would have to carry out additional work for the water to reach their farms.

The Junta Central de Usuarios del Sur del Guaro, which has some 2,700 hectares of subtropical crops on the right bank of the River Vélez, has been receiving, since November 2021, up to 5.2 cubic hectometres per year of reclaimed water from the Vélez-Málaga treatment plant.

Of the 6,400 hectares of crops that are less than 140 metres above sea level in the Axarquía, just half have access to alternative water resources since their supply of water from La Viñuela reservoir was completely cut off in October 2022.

The two Torrox treatment plants have been supplying a further 1.8 cubic hectometres for the irrigation of around 500 hectares of subtropical crops and greenhouses. The growers community in Algarrobo is still unable to use reclaimed water due to high salinity. The Axarquia community has called on the Junta de Andalucía to make the reclaimed water from the Nerja wastewater treatment plant available.

The plant, which started working in October 2020, still does not have a tertiary system. The Junta included the installation of such as system in its third drought decree, but at the same time it is asking the central government to finance it as the body currently responsible for it. Nerja town hall has been calling on the government to hand over responsibility to the local authority for some time and has been charging residents the sewage tax in their water bills since the end of 2020.