Water crisis
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La Concepción, the reservoir that provides drinking water for much of the western Costa del Sol, perfectly embodies the paradoxes of the Mediterranean climate and Malaga province's relationship with the precious resource. A little over a year ago the province was facing a severe drought, but one year later, water has had to be released due to safety reasons and full capacity.
It would have had one and a half times its capacity if the water hadn't been drained. Now the Junta de Andalucía, within the framework of its drought plans, is developing a project to make the most of the reserves in the event of it going back to being declared a 'dead' reservoir.
This concept is somewhat outdated. Basically it occurs when the water level falls below the water supply intakes. In these cases the water quality decreases considerably due to the increase in sediment and organic matter and a decrease in oxygen levels. Usually, floating intakes or pumps are used to try to capture water on the surface and sometimes weeding has to be carried out to avoid fish dying, which in turn would lead to further problems with the quality of the remaining water.
During the 1995 drought there were only 0.4 million cubic metres left in the reservoir. These systems were implemented in several phases at the time, but 30 years later they now need a general overhaul.
The work, based on a project by Irtene and SGS, has a starting budget of 1.1 million euros, including taxes, which the regional government has just put out to tender.
In November 1981 an asbestos cement pipe was installed. It has deteriorated after more than 40 years of life, as is logical. Then in 1995 three submersible pumps were installed on the surface of the dam, which drive the flow of approximately 400 litres per second, from a height of 44.00 metres to the intermediate intake, which is located at a height of 76.50 metres. "As these pumps are submerged at great depths, it has not been possible to carry out any maintenance work, so it is likely that they could have some kind of operating problem and it is impossible to repair them," a statement by the Junta explains.
The pumping station, although currently operating, is not energy efficient and threatens serious problems as soon as the pumps have to be reconnected to lift the water.
Different alternatives have been studied to recover the extraction capacity of the reservoir's last resources in the event of drought. The pros and cons of three alternatives have been analysed. The first is to install a floating intake in the reservoir, with submersible pumps. The second is an in-line pumping system, which would consist of intercalating the pumping equipment in the pipeline that currently connects the bottom outlet with the intermediate intake.
The third would consist of using the stilling basin when the water flows out of the spillway of the dam. And here, in turn, two possibilities are open and the one of an independent conduction from the stilling basin to the existing impulsion conduction that connects with the outlet channel has been chosen.
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