Drought crisis
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Malaga
Monday, 19 August 2024, 19:28
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The regional delegate for agriculture, fisheries, water and rural development in Malaga, Fernando Fernández Tapia-Ruano, together with the manager of Emasa, Juanjo Denis, visited the rehabilitation work being carried out by the Junta de Andalucía, with an investment of 15,436,822.87 euros, on the wells located on both banks of the River Guadalhorce and their connection to the El Atabal drinking water treatment plant (DWTP). The work began last May and, with a 10-month completion period, is now 20 per cent complete.
This investment corresponding to the Junta's drought decree is therefore the key in the emergency contingency plan. These were wells that were important during the drought of 1995 and then fell into disuse. Malaga city council hall has located 18, but, to start with, this first action focuses on six: Puente del Rey, which has three wells; in Perales, two wells, and another at Malaga Airport.
The work will take ten months and will completely rehabilitate the above-mentioned wells without modifying their geometric characteristics or exceeding the authorised operating thresholds. In the case of the pipelines, the existing sections will be renovated, and new routes will be laid where necessary.
The set of installations is completed with the corresponding electricity supplies. For example, they include four transformer stations.
The water will be extracted from the wells by means of 220 kW submersible pumps with a working point of 100 litres/second each and a head of 100 m.c.a. (the pressure exerted by a 100-metre column of pure water), which will lift the water to the existing reservoir in the Puente del Rey area.
This facility, currently disused, will also be rehabilitated both structurally and in terms of waterproofing, urbanisation and installations. In addition, the machine room will be fitted out to house the equipment to supply water to the El Atabal DWTP.
These flows are expected to contain more organic matter and marine materials as they are part of the final course of the river. For this reason, they will be treated in the Atabal plant, which will reinforce the ozone treatment system it already has. In this sense, a project is being drafted at a cost of 600,000 euros.
Tapia-Ruano said that the use of the subterranean resources of the Bajor (lower) Guadalhorce, as well as the necessary pipelines, are considered to be works of great importance to the Andalucía regionand of an emergency nature for the purposes set out in the legislation on public sector contracts, given the exceptional drought situation. "The purpose of these works, which run entirely on public land and for which the corresponding environmental consultations have been carried out, is the complete rehabilitation of a series of wells that were once used by the city of Malaga as a source of supply and were subsequently placed in a situation of strategic reserve," he explained.
Likewise, the delegate added, "They constitute an additional guarantee for the Costa del Sol's upstream supply systems, already interconnected through the "autovía del agua" (water highway), on which the Andalusian government has already carried out other actions, providing it with a greater capacity to exchange resources."
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