council of Tenerife and Ministry of Agriculture of Government of Spain sign an agreement worth 18 million euros to promote reclaimed water in the southwest of Tenerife. This agreement includes the construction of a new pond in Las Charquetas (Guía de Isora) and the implementation of a distribution network to promote driving to the municipalities of Adeje, Guía de Isora and Santiago del Teide
Actually, there were two agreements signed with the State Society for Agrarian Infrastructures (Seiasa), under the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, for the construction of the reservoir and the implementation of the reclaimed water distribution network.
Both projects, in which more than 18 million euros will be invested, will be 80 percent financed by Seiasa (14.4 million euros), charged to the funds received through the European Union Recovery and Resilience Facilityand 20 percent by the Island Corporation (3.6 million).
twelve million meters
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Peter Martinstressed that “this agreement will benefit a useful cultivation area of about 12 million square meters, mostly banana trees, which shows its importance, since it will guarantee the supply of water in quantity, quality and price to the men and women farmers from the west of the Island».
The president of Seiasa, Francisco Rodríguez Mulero, valued the collaborative work carried out and the importance of these investments to guarantee water for future generations in an “efficient and sustainable” way.
During his speech, he also pointed out that the forecast is for the works to begin between the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, and that the project, which will be divided into three phases, will have a 36 month lead time. He announced that the investment will be higher than the one signed yesterday due to “overprices” and that an addendum will be drawn up that will increase the amount to almost 20 million euros.
For his part, the Island Councilor for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Javier Parrilla, recalled that “Tenerife has been experiencing below-average rainfall for eight years and enduring a progressive increase in average temperature; hence the importance of this agreement, which marks the beginning of the definitive modernization of the irrigation systems of Tenerife and will help to guarantee the survival of agriculture on our island”.
Also present at the signing were the mayoress of Guía de Isora, Josefa Mesa; the general director of agriculture Government of the Canary Islands, Augusto Hernandez; and the deputy mayor of the Adeje City Council, Esther Rivero. All of them agreed on the importance of this intervention and on the need to continue promoting modern and sustainable irrigation systems to be able to face the current situation of drought and water uncertainty.
The project, which will be divided into three phases, is framed within the State Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. The objective of phases I and II is to establish a pressurized water distribution network that controls a useful crop area of some 1,200 hectares in the municipalities of Adeje, Guía de Isora and Santiago del Teide.
In this action, a investment of 8,480,000 euros and the layout of the networks has been carried out in such a way that, in most of the route, the pipes run along existing tracks and paths.
For its part, the Las Charquetas regulating pond has a budget of 9,540,000 euros, will have a capacity of about 250,000 cubic meters and a total height of 16 meters.
