SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, May 27. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The La Laguna City Council has received a grant of 1,799,077 euros from the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Government of the Canary Islands for a project to reuse reclaimed water from the sewage treatment plant in agricultural irrigation. Punta del Hidalgo.
The aid granted corresponds to the call for subsidies to finance actions in Biosphere Reserves within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, financed by the European Union through Next-Generation funds.
Thanks to this subsidy, the City Council, through the mixed company Teidagua, will be able to carry out the complete remodeling of the treatment plant, improving the water treatment system and increasing its capacity from the 850 cubic meters per day that are currently treated. up to approximately 1,200 cubic meters per day, thus covering the forecasts for this area of the municipality in the next 20 years. With this project, 100% of the treated water will be regenerated.
The mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, celebrated “an economic aid of this caliber, which is essential to launch a much-needed project for the area’s agricultural sector, which will be able to benefit from quality irrigation water thanks to to the technical modernization of the Punta del Hidalgo station, with which we can make the most of the purified water”.
The Punta del Hidalgo plant is a conventional treatment plant built in the early 1980s. In recent years, a series of modifications have been made to improve the quality of the outlet water and energy efficiency. To this is added a recent study to estimate the population growth that the area will suffer in the coming decades, reaching the conclusion that the infrastructure required an expansion of the water treatment capacity.
Based on these forecasts, Teidagua drew up a project for the next 20 years to carry out a technological change that would increase plant capacity, increase its energy efficiency and improve water quality so that it can be used by farmers in the area for irrigation.
The City Council of La Laguna has been able to access this line of European subsidies as the Punta del Hidalgo treatment plant is located within the Anaga Biosphere Reserve. The budget for the execution of the project is covered in its entirety by the subsidy and the expected period of execution of the works is 12 months. The action will make it possible to fully regenerate purified water for use in agriculture with a maximum level of quality, thanks to a state-of-the-art filter membrane system.
From an environmental point of view, the project will also contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and the elimination of threat factors and pressures currently suffered by ecosystems, habitats of community interest and threatened species present in the affected area, in addition to preserving the natural sources.
