Drought crisis
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Eugenio Cabezas
Axarquía
Tuesday, 7 January 2025, 09:23
Despite the fact that the autumn and so far this winter have been much wetter than the last three years, the Axarquía area to the east of Malaga province continues to demand that the plan to build a desalination plant goes ahead, which has been committed to since May 2023 by Spain's central government. More than a year and a half later, the initiative is still immersed in a bureaucratic labyrinth, which sends it back and forth between Pedro Sánchez's central government and Juanma Moreno's Andalusian regional government.
However, the end users, farmers and residents, do not understand the incessant political squabbling, and even if it is behind the scenes, administrative steps are being taken, albeit very slowly. After clearing up the initial uncertainty about who should draw up the basic project which looked at the most suitable location for the desalination plant, the farmers and the Mancomunidad association of town halls in the Axarquía, as end users, are about to constitute the entity requesting the future contract of desalinated water from the Axarquía, which will be granted by the Junta once the public company Acuamed builds the facility.
The plant is planned for the Las Campiñuelas area in Vélez-Málaga, near the Caleta de Vélez exit from the A-7 Mediterranean motorway, next to the Seco river. It will require an initial estimated public investment of one hundred million euros, to be returned by the users through payments made in the decades following its inauguration, which is not expected before 2029. It will also have a new central board of users of the eastern Costa del Sol-Axarquia as the sole user.
This body will be made up of the Junta Central de Usuarios del Sur del Guaro, which groups together the growers on the right bank of the Guaro river plan, the Junta Central de Usuarios de la Axarquía, which is made up of those on the left bank, and the Mancomunidad association of town halls in the Axarquía, through the public company Axaragua, which provides the upstream supply service to 14 of the 31 towns in the area.
These are: Almáchar, Benamargosa, Benamocarra, El Borge, Comares, Cútar, Iznate, Macharaviaya, Moclinejo, Rincón de la Victoria, Vélez-Málaga, Totalán, Algarrobo and Torrox, with a total population of around 180,000 registered inhabitants and some 230,000 in high season with the floating population.
As a preliminary step to the constitution of the body, the board of users of the Axarquía plans to hold an ordinary assembly in the middle of January at the headquarters of the Vélez-Málaga based subtropical cooperative Trops, in which, among other matters, a vote will be taken on the integration into the new central board of users. In the following days, this new entity will also convene its first meeting in order to elect the representatives before the different public administrations. Administrative steps are being taken to make the long-awaited desalination plant project a reality.
It is expected that the technical consultancy company that is drawing up the basic project will deliver it to the Andalusian regional government, and to the central ministry for the environment, by spring.
"The project is moving forward, not without difficulties, but at least we see that there is a real will on the part of all those involved to go to one, we have no other choice," representatives from the new association said. The public desalination plant planned for Vélez-Málaga will initially have a planned capacity of 25 cubic hectometres per year, half of which will be for irrigation and the other half for supplying the population.
This public project is different from the initiative of a private desalination plant being promoted by the Junta since 2022. In this case, the regional administration has not yet clarified whether it will continue with the administrative procedure to award the contract to one of the two remaining bidders, Magtel and Acciona.
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