The restriction on the consumption of tap water for the 5,561 inhabitants of the municipality of La Guanchawhich began this Wednesday, May 31, will continue “at least one more month,” as the acting mayor acknowledged this Thursday, June 1, to EL DÍA, Antonio Hernandez (PP). Its forecast is that the service can be restored normally within a period of “between one and two months”. Until then, the guancheros will not be able to use the water from the public network for drinking, cooking or preparing food. There is no risk of using the water for personal hygiene or household cleaning.
The origin of this new restriction, which affects a municipality accustomed to having repeated problems with the water supply, lies in the gradual decline in the levels of municipal deposits, which this Wednesday reached critical levels and forced the acting local government to make a drastic decision. «The origin of the problem is in the hot days that we spend, the increase in consumption probably due to the filling of swimming pools and some important leak that we have not yet been able to locate. This brought deposits to critical levels and forced us to act to avoid supply cuts.», explains Hernandez.
“We had to stop treating the water in the Cruz de Tarifes Brackish Water Desalination Station, where practically 20% of the water that enters is lost, to begin to recover the levels of the deposits and avoid leaving the neighbors without water in their houses, “informs the mayor. The incorporation of untreated water, and with excess fluoride, is what makes it necessary to restrict consumption, since drinking it can cause stains on the teeth. It has been chosen to offer low quality water rather than cut off the supply at certain times or places.
“The process to reach the safety margins of the deposits is slow and will still take weeks”
By ceasing to treat all the water that reaches La Guancha de Vergara I and II, The municipality has about 20 more cubic meters every hour, about 20,000 liters of extra water that arrive every hour at local tanks. Only with the contribution of the first 48 hours, some 960,000 more liters of water, the deposits have exceeded critical levels. However, the process to reach the safety margins “is slow and will still take weeks,” warns Hernández. Then the quality analyzes will remain pending.. These days, the plumbers of the northern City Hall are working in the search for new leaks that justify the increase in losses.
“The water market is as it is and we have no margin to buy more, treat it and incorporate it into the public network,” says Hernández, who adds that “water is compromised and, unfortunately, the supply of the municipalities does not have any type of prioritySo most of Vergara’s water is still used for agricultural irrigation and in situations like this we have to make decisions.”
Hernández acknowledges that adopting these measures is not pleasant, but stresses that “there was no other way than restrictions on consumption or water cuts.” For the guancho mayor in office, the dilemma has a clear answer: «Our priority is that the neighbors open the tap and receive water so they can shower, wash clothes, flush the cistern or clean the dishes.. When circumstances like the current one do not occur, La Guancha has excellent quality treated water. Now the most prudent thing was to act as we act. The Guanchero City Council understands that this restriction is a lesser evil, since its main objective is to avoid further interruptions in supply to homes and businesses, even at night.
A system as unique as it is fragile
The municipality of La Guancha is the only one in the Canary Islands that receives all its water from a single gallery, although formally there are two mouths (Vergara I and Vergara II). It is also the only one in the Archipelago that has to treat 100% of the public supply water in a Brackish Water Desalination Station (Edas), the one in Cruz de Tarifes, which generates an additional cost and, in addition, forces the loss of almost 20 % of the water that enters, which remains in the form of brine. In addition, this northern town, with a population dispersed between the midlands and the coast, suffers significant losses in its 22 kilometers of pipes. Every week there are an average of twenty breaks or leaks. According to data from the Tenerife Island Water Council of April 2021, La Guancha then registered 56% of water losses in its network
