The Cabildo de Tenerife projects a large desalination plant for the Güímar Valley. With this infrastructure, the Island Corporation intends to strengthen the water supply, both for human consumption and for field irrigation. The island councilor for Sustainable Development and the Fight against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez, explained that the Güímar Valley is “an area that suffers continuous tension from the water point of view”, due to which “even water prices are more variable than in other neighboring counties».
The Cabildo de Tenerife, through the Insular Water Council, announced yesterday that it has approved a budget of 208,319 euros for the drafting of a project to install the desalination plant in the Güímar Industrial Estate. It will replace the portable one that is currently operating in this industrial zone and that has a very limited treatment capacity: about 1,000 cubic meters of salt water.
17 Olympic swimming pools
The new desalination plant will have the capacity to desalinate 21,000 cubic meters of water per day, with the possibility of reaching up to 42,000, a figure equivalent to the water in 17 Olympic swimming pools. “These are quite considerable quantities to supply the entire Güímar Valley with it,” said Javier Rodríguez. To understand the size of the new facility, it will be able to desalinate almost half of all the seawater that is reused in Tenerife.
Tenerife had never desalinated as much water as now, according to the latest balance, from 2019. The six facilities that depend on the Insular Water Council produce an amount equivalent to 40 Olympic swimming pools every day or, which is the same, 100,000 cubic meters every 24 hours. Specifically, the desalination plant in Santa Cruz de Tenerife produces 28,800 cubic meters of desalinated water daily, in addition to the 1,000 generated by the facility located in Güímar. In the south of the island, the Adeje-Arona one produces 33,000 cubic meters of desalinated water every day, the Adeje-West 10,000, while the Fonsalía one reached 14,000 cubic meters of desalinated water daily in the summer of 2019, after that its capacity be increased due to the drought, which endangers the crops in the area.
Rodríguez Medina stressed the importance of supplying water, sanitation and purification resources to a space such as the Valle de Güímar industrial estate, “of special relevance due to its economic activity not only for the region (municipalities of Candelaria, Güímar and Arafo), but for the entire island. In this regard, the island councilor emphasizes the “significant investment” that the Cabildo is making in the Güímar Valley through actions in the area, such as urban wastewater and industrial wastewater treatment plants. For the installation of the desalination plant, the Tenerife Island Council has already obtained the corresponding land for its installation.
