What's the latest on the new desalination plants destined for the Costa del Sol?

Chus Heredia

Estepona

Tuesday, 8 October 2024, 15:13 | Updated 15:33h.

The mayor of Estepona on the western Costa del Sol, Jose María García Urbano, has been determined for the last year to fight the drought crisis plaguing the whole of Spain's Andalucía region and develop a double desalination system in his municipality.

On the one hand, the big project is a portable or containerised seawater desalination plant next to the mouth of the Río Castor, powered by photovoltaics. On the other hand he is planning a desalination plant for the Padrón wells.

The contracts to carry out the work were given to Hidralia, the municipality's public water company, and the physical results are there: the two projects are advancing well. The mayor had the land and the financing and the ideas were clear. In the context of the drought, these projects have occupied an important place on Malaga province's political agenda.

The Junta de Andalucía's agricultural department and the Mancomunidad association of town halls on the western Costa del Sol, via the water company Acosol, are working on extending the Marbella desalination plant by up to 20 cubic hectometres per year and will activate the first projects for another seawater plant in the Mijas-Fuengirola area or perhaps even further east.

What are the unknowns? There are few questions about the Estepona well water and the desalination plant, apart from the formalities, which are progressing more slowly than the work. The plant will be managed by Hidralia because it is a local supply. As for the seawater plant, apart from the formalities, who will manage it remains unknown.

Acosol has the competence to desalinate. Everything indicates that its technicians and staff should be responsible for the plant. But there are three problems here: the financing is one hundred per cent municipal; this would have an impact on the desalination levy paid by the 11 municipalities that make up the association; and finally, the initial dimensions of the desalination plant are not proportional to the needs of a coast that drinks 90 hm3 per year.

Speaking to this newspaper yesterday, the mayor was categorical. This is not the time to talk about management, but about construction. And asked if the infrastructure would be for Estepona or for the coast, he assured: "We will show solidarity".

The sea desalination plant is modular, so it can be expanded in phases. The wells will be in a building that has already been completed. And this Monday the BOJA published an environmental and public information procedure related to the pipeline that would expel the salt water runoff into the sea.

The desalination plant is about to enter the test phase. "We are awaiting the relevant authorisations for a project of this nature that involves different departments from different administrations. The town hall has already asked the Andalusian regional government's health and consumer affairs department to draw up a report on the suitability, sanitary qualification of the water and the minimum requirements for making the wells drinkable.

In this sense, all the actions required by the health authorities for the issuing of this report are being carried out, including "the analysis of the raw water from each well, the treatment to which the water will be subjected to make it safe to drink and the analysis of the water once it has been treated," municipal sources told SUR. Then there would be a report from the regional government.

In a few days, operational tests could begin (watertightness, calibration of automated systems, etc.) and arrangements have been made with Endesa to move a transformer station.

"As for the desalination plant, Estepona town hall continues to work on its commissioning because it considers it to be the ideal solution to the drought problems facing the Costa del Sol," the sources added.

The process of obtaining the necessary land at the mouth of the Castor river is at an advanced stage. The equipment and containers for the desalination plant have also been completed and can begin to be installed once the pending authorisations have been received.

The town hall has highlighted the joint work that is being carried out with the other competent administrations so that the desalination plant can be operational in 2025.

It is certainly an issue on which all administrations are bound to understand each other. Although politically it is not a project that has been free of misgivings, talks have intensified in recent days.

And what is expected to be produced if all goes well? Well, from the wells approximately 1 hm3 per year (water for 15,000 people) and from the desalination plant, in a first phase 2.8 (slightly less than 45,000 inhabitants) and in subsequent extensions, 9 (for slightly more than 130,000).