Three locations still being studied for future Costa del Sol desalination plant as draft plan deadline slips

The Axarquía area's La Viñuela reservoir in the east of Malaga province is still in a severe drought situation, despite the rain in October, but it could be another "four or five years at most" before the new water source is a reality

Eugenio Cabezas

Axarquía

Tuesday, 12 November 2024, 13:47

The future desalination plant in the Axarquía area to the east of Malaga province is still in the hands of bureaucratic procedures which continue to delay the project, for which 100 million euros have been budgeted by Spain’s central government. After it was announced last June that the project could be drafted by the end of the year, this deadline has now been extended by a few more months, until spring 2025.

This, at least, is what the president of the Junta Central de Usuarios del Sur del Guaro, José Campos, told SUR, who explained that the work of drawing up a draft plan for the project, financed by the farmers and the Mancomunidad association of town halls in the Axarquía, has been entrusted to a Malaga consultancy firm, which is studying three possible locations. “This is what the Ministry and Aquamed have asked us to do, because they have doubts about the first location proposed next to the Vélez-Málaga sewage treatment plant,” said the farmer from Vélez-Málaga.

The possible locations that are under study, again, are the one located next to the treatment plant on the left bank of the river Velez Río Vélez to the west of Torre del Mar and next to the river Seco, between Torre del Mar and Caleta de Velez. “In all cases there are possibilities of connection with the irrigation and supply networks, so the location is not a problem, the key is in the submarine outfalls and the water inlets,” said Campos.

In principle, the plant will have an initial maximum capacity of 25 cubic hectometres per year, which will be divided 50/50 between the Mancomunidad’s public water company, Axaragua, to supply the 14 municipalities of the Axarquía that currently depend on water from La Viñuela reservoir, and the farmers included in the ‘Guaro Plan’, both those on the left bank, grouped in the Central Board of Users of the Axarquia, and those on the right, in the Central Board of Users of the South of the Guaro.

Ready within four or five years

“The formula for the management of the desalination plant has yet to be defined, whether it will be handed over to the end users, who would have to create a joint entity between the Mancomunidad and the irrigators, or whether it would be managed directly by Acuamed,” said Campos, who, despite the scepticism in the Axarquía about the real possibilities of the desalination plant becoming a reality, is confident that it will be implemented “within four or five years at the most”.

He went on to say, “There is willingness on the part of all the administrations, that is what the Ministry, Acuamed and the Junta de Andalucía are showing us, they just need to give it the definitive push and we are all working on it.”

He has been calling for a desalination plant for the Axarquía since 2008, when the previous serious period of drought occurred, and the reservoir was left with just 15 hectometres.

Once the draft project is delivered to the Ministry for Ecological Transition, the public company Acuamed, which has already been entrusted with its execution, will be responsible for building it. But Campos believes that the initiative cannot be limited to the 25 cubic hectometres initially planned, “because the needs of the whole area are much greater, above the 140-metre level of the Guaro Plan”.

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