The Government of the Generalitat accelerates preparations to declare a drought emergency. At a meeting of the Executive this Tuesday, agreements were approved to apply restrictions on water consumption, as soon as reservoir reserves reach 16%. The advisor of Acció Climàtica, David Mascort, has stated that reserves are now at levels between 16.2% and 16.7%. “We are prolonging the start of the emergency,” said Mascort, while breaking down the content of the three agreements. Among the measures being prepared when the drought emergency is declared, which could be on February 1, there will be a ban on filling swimming pools. This will affect all private facilities, including hotels, campsites and water parks. “We are not saying that they have to be closed, but they cannot be filled. It is the only condition we set,” Mascort detailed. In the pre-emergency phase, declared at the end of November, only the filling of private pools for individual use was prohibited.
The Government prohibits the total or partial filling of swimming pools, except in the case of those facilities that are registered in the Generalitat's census of sports facilities. Also the use of ice rinks or foam parties in Catalonia. The measure makes it impossible for hotels, campsites and tourist facilities to fill their pools with a view to the summer season. “We do not make specific restrictions on tourism, they are generic restrictions,” Mascort pointed out. “We are going to allow people to continue practicing sports,” he stated, and argued that the pandemic made it clear that sports activity has a fundamental role in the well-being of the population, mainly young people.
In the emergency phase, which is planned to be declared “in the coming weeks” because the weather forecasts do not announce rain, it will be prohibited to start new livestock activities and start up farms or expand the capacity of existing ones. The ban also affects the promotion of new urban plans, new economic activities related to commerce and industry. Mascort has pointed out that the veto affects “any activity that requires environmental authorization from the Generalitat and that requires intensive use of water.” To stretch the reserves, Acció Climàtica foresees a considerable reduction in the flows of the Ter, Llobregat and Muga rivers. The flow is reduced until it reaches an “emergency flow”. The Llobregat will shrink from 500 liters per second to 250, the Ter from 2000 to 600 and the Muga goes from 135 liters per second to 40.
The Government makes some of the measures provided for in the drought plan more flexible, “to adapt them to today's situation,” Mascort alleged. “Survival” irrigation of trees is allowed, but irrigation of green areas and public and private gardens is prohibited. Irrigation is also accepted in sports facilities, natural and artificial grass fields, for federated competitions, with the commitment to reduce water consumption in showers. If the drought persists and more severe restrictions have to be activated, it is planned to completely prohibit the use of showers.
The specific episodes of rain last week have been less important than expected and have not brought much relief to the headwaters of the Ter and Llobregat rivers, the sources that supply the reservoirs of Girona, Barcelona and their area of influence, which They are at 16% of their capacity. It is the harshest and most intense drought since there are records in Catalonia, where there have only been two episodes of normal rains in three years: the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2021. Since then, the Generalitat has been trying to manage water reserves to not declare entry into the emergency phase of the Special Drought Plan (PES), which includes the most severe restrictions for industrial, agricultural and human uses. With this objective, the Catalan Executive activated the pre-emergency plan at the end of November.
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Among the agreements approved by the Government this Tuesday is the increase from 50 to 120 million euros in the aid that municipalities can request to fix and modernize supply networks. The Catalan Executive has postponed the distribution of subsidies for five months due to the high number of applications. The Generalitat has received up to 880 requests, according to Mascort. “We have expanded the budget item to meet all the demands of the town councils,” he pointed out, recalling that they are aid that goes beyond the original objectives of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), the management of high water.
Full swimming pools on the Costa Brava
Martha Rodriguez
From the Catalan Camping Federation, its president, Miquel Gotanegra, has announced that they will request an urgent meeting with councilor David Mascort to clarify what exactly the announcement made this Tuesday regarding the swimming pools entails. The Federation represents 70% of the campsites in Catalonia, 249 federated establishments that add up to 226,858 places, 83.5% of the total. For their part, the manager of the hoteliers of the Costa Brava Center, Judit Lloberol, and the president of the Lloret de Mar Hoteliers' Guild, Enric Dotras, have explained that they have already warned their nearly 350 associates that, in anticipation of a worsening of drought, they did not empty their pools and did maintenance throughout the winter. Only those who have converted their pools from chlorine to salt water have emptied them. Thus, almost all of the pools in the hotels on the Costa Brava will be available for use at the beginning of summer, the question will be whether the water that is lost through use and evaporation will allow them to last the entire season.
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