Acosol awards contract for Costa del Sol 'water motorway' stretch between Casares and Estepona

The contract, awarded to Irtene SL, a Malaga-based engineering firm specialising in water infrastructure, covers a 2.55-kilometre section running between the Galera stream and a junction with the MA-8300, the road linking Casares village with the coast. It includes both design work and construction oversight, and Irtene has 24 months to complete it.

Acosol has named the works as one of the interventions that "must be prioritised and carried out in the short term". They will be funded through the region's infrastructure improvement levy, as the utility company considers them necessary "to reduce the risk of breakdowns, improve the reliability of the system and ensure the service is maintained in suitable conditions".

The stretch has a troubled history. Its main pipeline, an 800mm reinforced concrete pipe with a steel casing, has suffered several failures, the worst of which occurred on 16 January 2016, when ruptures caused "significant" material damage and cut off supply. A parallel 400mm line is in even worse shape: built from fibre cement, a material no longer used in water networks, it is in an "advanced state of deterioration" and continues to suffer recurring breaks and leaks at its joints.

Under the new contract, Irtene must assess the condition of the existing pipelines and set out the technical work needed to replace or upgrade them. It will also need to resolve several tricky crossings along the route, including beneath the Jordana and Galera streams and under the A-7 motorway.

Irtene's work will build on a project drawn up in March 2020 for the area between the Galera and Jordana streams, which already defined the renovation needed for that part of the network. It must also take into account a separate scheme to repair the water supply where it crosses the Jordana stream, which is currently under construction.

The new project must guarantee "technical and functional compatibility" with the wider 'water motorway' scheme, as well as with plans to connect the water supplies of Campo de Gibraltar and the Western Costa del Sol via the western branch. The aim is for the chosen solution to allow those later works to go ahead without creating construction problems or limiting the planned layout of the bulk supply network.

The design work on the Casares-Estepona stretch is expected to run alongside the first phase of 'water motorway' works in Marbella. Acosol is separately tendering a contract worth 1.84 million euros, also with a 24-month deadline, to design three sections of pipeline totalling more than 11.8 kilometres.

These sections form part of the eastern branch linking Marbella, including its desalination plant and the Río Verde drinking water treatment plant, with the Fuengirola reservoir. It marks the first phase of the connection between the two towns, and all three sections lie within Marbella itself.