SANTA CRUZ DE LA PALMA, Oct 5 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Minister of Ecological Transition of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Antonio Valbuena, announced this Tuesday that the two portable desalination plants that will be installed on La Palma will allow irrigation to the farms affected by the eruption in the Aridane Valley at the end of the next week.
In a press conference in which he was accompanied by the president of the Cabildo, Mariano Hernández, the counselor commented that they have the capacity to pump 2,800 cubic meters per day to the network, which will be complemented by the tanker that the central government sends from the Peninsula and will arrive next week.
Valbuena has specified, however, that this irrigation water is for “maintenance” to achieve the “survival” of the plants, not their growth, a “contingency” work so that the farms can guarantee their activity in the future.
He pointed out that “it is a very complex task”, but with the “effort” of institutions, private companies and the farmers themselves, the terms will be drastically reduced, which initially stood at six months.
In the medium term, he commented that other solutions are being considered, such as building new pipelines and conduits or closing the hydraulic circuit that connects the El Remo area with the south of the island, but “it takes several months.”
The counselor has also pointed out that there will be a “daily monitoring” of the works because “they are not simple, it is a lot of flow”, in order to if a problem arises when the catchment wells are made, it can intervene.
THE ITC IN CHARGE OF SUPERVISION
He pointed out that the supervision of the works has been entrusted to the technicians of the ITC (Technological Institute of the Canary Islands) and highlighted that they are “doubling shifts” and working “continuously” for the start-up of the desalination plants.
Likewise, he has indicated that with the Puerto Naos nucleus evacuated, the conditions are not optimal for work, so “it is yet another difficulty.”
Hernández Zapata, for his part, commented that the start-up of these desalination plants is a sample of the “muscle” of public administrations to respond to the needs of farmers and thus save future productions.
MAKING “AN IMPOSSIBLE”, SAYS HERNÁNDEZ ZAPATA
He thanked the work, among others, of ITC, Endesa, the supplying company, the Insular Water Council and the community of irrigators in the area, which has offered pumps and wells, to carry out “an impossible” that can be done. start watering in less than two weeks.
Likewise, it has been in favor of closing the water ring to benefit other areas that have been relegated and valued the “powerful financing” that both the Government of the Canary Islands and the State are allocating to help rebuild La Palma.
The teams will arrive at the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma from Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the afternoon-evening of this Tuesday and will be implanted in Puerto Naos on Wednesday.
The convoy will consist of a total of four containers, two corresponding to the two desalination plants, which have a length of forty feet, and two auxiliary containers of twenty feet.
The set of works also includes the necessary steps to connect the equipment to the electrical network; the concretion of the ownership of the land through which the necessary pipelines will pass to carry the desalinated water from Puerto Naos to the network; the realization of two jugs on the beach that will allow the arrival of sea water to the desalination plants as well as the search and location of the tanks where the water can be stored.
