The Government of Spain has authorized in the Council of Ministers a new modification of the Direct Management Agreement of the state trading company ACUAESwhich includes the incorporation of new actions throughout the national territory and among which are the works that ACUAES is developing in the Orotava Valley in Tenerife. This new agreement includes the expansion and remodeling works of the regional sewage treatment plant in which they will be invested €25 million.
The president of Council of TenerifePedro Martín, has indicated that this modification of the agreement allows the expansion of the works at the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) of Cross portwhich are part of a investment package which will mean a undoubted improvement in water treatment on the island, which will place Tenerife at levels of wastewater treatment not less than 90% and take an important qualitative and quantitative leap to avoid the sanctions that the Government of Spain is receiving, precisely, in the case of Tenerife, for the inappropriate treatment of wastewater”.
On the other hand, the Tenerife Island Water Council is drafting the project for the remodeling and expansion of the Valle de La Orotava regional treatment plant from April 1. “Only the drafting of this project has a cost of €188,251.09 and it is expected to be completed in October this year and will be the basic document that will serve to sign the corresponding agreement between the Cabildo and the Insular Water Council with ACUAES to proceed with the execution of the remodeling and expansion of the treatment plant in the valley of La Orotava following the same experience as in other areas such as Granadilla, Arona, San Miguel, Guía de Isora, Santiago del Teide, La Matanza, La Victoria and Santa Úrsula where Sanitation and purification works are already being carried out in most of these municipalities,” the president pointed out.
The current wastewater treatment plant in the Valle de La Orotava is an old installation built in the 1990s and is clearly insufficient to collect all the wastewater in the Valle de La Orotava.
In this sense, since March 2, works have been carried out on main collectors, especially in La Orotava and Los Realejos, which are the areas with the greatest deficit in the sanitation network, for an amount of €9,721,012. These actions were awarded to the construction joint venture Daltre-Martín Casillas and are scheduled to be completed before December 2023.
From the City Council of Puerto de la Cruz, its mayor Marco González, values the work that has been carried out by the different administrations so that this infrastructure has both a project and financing very soon. “We are grateful that the island and state administrations have endorsed this priority need for the entire Valley and our city, which is a vital step in meeting the challenges of sanitation and water reuse with all guarantees.”
The novelty of this expansion is that it will allow all these wastewaters to be regenerated for agricultural irrigation. The project contemplates the expansion of water treatment from the current 6,700 m³/day to 10,000 m³/day in a first phase, leaving a second phase of another 10,000 m³/day planned.
“The strategy is to build new facilities on the land adjacent to the current Punta Brava WWTP so that they come into operation upon completion and then demolish the existing plant to build another new facility on top of it that will complete the 20,000 m³ per day. This plant will contemplate the most modern deodorization systems, although the entire process of the plant will be encapsulated as has been done in the Güímar Valley WWTP and is being done in the Santa Cruz WWTP”, indicated the island councilor for Sustainable Development. and Fight Against Climate Change, Javier Rodríguez Medina.
“The great benefit is that all the treated water can be placed on the agricultural market and allowing zero discharge to be achieved on the coast, as is also planned in the seven treatment plants that are currently being carried out on the island,” explained the counselor.
In the hydrological plan of Tenerife, currently in the approval phase, it is foreseen that these waters can be distributed from the area of El Rincón to the low island.
The agreement with ACUAES consists of works that will improve wastewater management in the areas of Granadilla de Abona, Tenerife Oeste (Santiago del Teide and Guía de Isora), Arona Este-San Miguel, the region of Acentejo and Valle de La Orotava, and which will provide the island with a comprehensive sanitation and purification system that will make it possible to definitively resolve the problem of non-compliance with European directives on water protection.
The sanitation model of the Valle de La Orotava is made up of a set of infrastructures that make up the homonymous Territorial Sanitation System, which allows wastewater from the municipalities of Puerto de la Cruz, Los Realejos and La Orotava to be collected and transported to the La Orotava Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), located in Puerto de la Cruz, where the purification and regeneration treatment of purified water is carried out for its reuse in agricultural areas from La Orotava to Buenavista included.
This new agreement complements and extends the sanitation and purification plan that ACUAES is developing on the island based on the agreement signed with the Tenerife Island Council and the Tenerife Island Water Council, which provides for an investment of 170 million euros, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund FEDER 2014-2020, within the Pluriregional Operational Program of Spain (POPE). ACUAES advances the financing of the works in its entirety, with 50 percent being recovered from the Cabildo within a period of 25 years, counting from the completion of the works, and also assumes the contracting and execution of the works, in addition to the direction and management until its completion while the operation and maintenance of the facilities will be in charge of the CIATF.
