The manager of the Island Water Council Tenerife (Ciatf), Ana Sanchezwarns that «We are experiencing a critical moment, of great water stress at the island level». A clear symptom of this is that «We have had to put into service the water transfer from the Santa Cruz WWTP (treatment plant) to the northeastern region and thus we have saved, in an exceptional way, the supply of agricultural irrigation water in this area».
The Roads, Canals and Ports engineer explained this during her intervention in the Question of Balance cycle. Water in Tenerife, tradition and avant-garde, organized by the Bethencourt y Molina Canarian Cultural Foundation of Engineering and Architecture, in collaboration with the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife (Rseapt).
In that forum, Sánchez Espadas reviewed the evolution of actions on the Island in this matter and described the ongoing projects as “very important to improve quality in the Santa Cruz treatment plant,” with an expansion that, “when finished, “We will have a production of 20,000 more cubic meters per day of water treated with membrane technology, which achieves exceptional microbiological quality.”
The relevance of this action goes further. “At the end of this work, the quality of the water it produces will improve in terms of conductivity and we will be able to transfer it to the Southern region with sufficient quality so that we will also be able to provide supply along the entire length of the transport pipeline.”
Sánchez stopped before the summer “that began in March” and the rafts of Tenerife in a critical situation. «This can only be alleviated with infrastructure and new resources, because agricultural irrigation cannot continue to depend solely on conventional resources.». He warned that “reclaimed water is the only resource of quantity and quality for agriculture,” but it requires a large investment, he clarified.
Balten manages 21 regulating ponds with a capacity of 5.1 cubic hectometers, more than 1,500 kilometers of pipelinesthree desalination plants and pumping stations distributed throughout the island geography.
