The difficulties in water distribution that have arisen in Buenavista del Norte recently are linked to a breakdown in one of the sources that supplies the municipality and to the functioning of the private water market in force in the Canary Islands.
For a few weeks, a breakdown in the desalination plant of the Irrigation Community of La Monja reduced the amount of water collected for Buenavista by half, going from around 12 cubic meters per hour to 6. “That, Together with the increase in consumption due to the good temperature, it has caused us to run out of water little by little and that the level of the tank was falling”, indicates the Councilor for Works and Services, Vanesa Martín.
This reality is added to a fact that is permanent: the fact that most of the water that reaches the municipality comes from the Vergara gallery, from private owners who in turn sell it to the town councils, which have to be at the expense of what the water market allows them to buy.
In this situation and, faced with the prospect that “we would probably have to cut off the supply to maintain the tanks and not run out of water completely, we opted for what we consider the least bad solution: add water from Balten to that mixture of waters ” in which the amount of fluorine and other dissolved salts are greater than what is allowed for human consumption and, therefore, it was decided to restrict consumption for drinking or cooking, as a preventive measure.
The consumption of water with high concentrations or metals is dangerous in the long term. For this reason, as soon as the fault is resolved, the mixture of low-quality water will be withdrawn and Buenavista del Norte will once again have water suitable for human consumption.
