Water cuts and embarrassment
The La Palma volcano showed us the existence of the technology, portable desalination plants, which saved the banana plantations. Here, they should be saving our main industry, tourism, as well as preserving the subtropical crops
Ignacio Lillo
Friday, 7 July 2023, 17:47
Nighttime water supply cuts have arrived in the Axarquía, and although this third-world-like situation is not unexpected, it is still embarrassing. The aberration ... is not only having restrictions on the main basic supply, but also having the technology readily available and used worldwide to prevent it... and not using it. If this problem were happening in Ciudad Real or Cáceres, which are located far from the coast, I might understand it to some extent. But experiencing water cuts while living by the sea, as is the case in Vélez and Torre del Mar, shows a lack of awareness about how the world works.
Water cuts during peak summer season are an economic and reputational disaster for the coastal towns of the Costa del Sol, and they should be addressed with drastic measures. The La Palma volcano showed us the existence of the technology, portable desalination plants, which saved the banana plantations there. Here, they should be saving our main industry, which is tourism, as well as preserving the subtropical crops.
The town council of Vélez, along with the regional government, supported by the central government, should have hired several of these mini desalination plants months ago and distributed them along the Axarquía coast. The resulting water would be expensive, yes, but it's better to pay higher electricity bills than to be left without water during the peak season.
Having this technology readily available but unable to use, only proves once again that water, drought, and those who suffer from it are not part of any government's priority agenda. They simply look up at the sky and pray, if they are believers, hoping for rain. At this point, relying on meteorological phenomena for our economic development and territorial stability is a symptom of our ancestral mediocrity, especially when there are countries like Israel that have thrived in the middle of a desert thanks to disciplined military management of water resources, but above all, thanks to technology.
On the other hand, although it doesn't solve the major problem in the short term, the one we're facing this summer, the regional government is taking too long to award the contract for the large desalination plant planned at the mouth of the Vélez river to one of the three companies and consortia that have applied for the concession. Bureaucratic procedures are taking longer than necessary, and as a result, not only are the avocados, which are the green gold of Axarquía, drying up, but neither is there enough water even for the ice in the glasses at bars past midnight...
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