SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife, through the Insular Water Council, has celebrated the anniversary of International Water Day at the Museum of Archeology and Nature (MUNA) with a technical conference that has been dedicated to the circular economy of water in the island.
The Minister of Sustainable Development and Vice President of the CIATF, Javier Rodríguez, indicated that it is something that in four years they have “hurried” to put into operation “in order to put an end to the chaotic situation of discharges into the subsoil and into the sea, the absence of purification systems or the lack of attention to the care and maintenance of the large bodies of water on the island”.
“On the island of Tenerife we needed to immediately carry out many works to put an end to the serious problem of spills with which we had been living for decades,” said the counselor, adding that the Canary Islands “is the region of Europe that accumulates the most sanctions for not adequately treat its waters, so we had to respond urgently and we have done that,” he added.
The counselor recalled that currently the Cabildo has launched “works throughout the island territory” and it can be said “absolutely” that “the problem of wastewater is ending.” He commented that this investment effort joins that of hydrological planning, with the approval of the Tenerife hydrological plan, which, in its third cycle, establishes that the percentage of dependence on groundwater must be reduced from 80 to 65%.
The conference took place in the auditorium of the Museum of Nature and Archeology and the first intervention was given by the manager of the CIATF, Javier Davara, who analyzed all those infrastructures that have been carried out in recent years in this area and presented the eleven sanitation and purification systems that have been executed or are being executed on the island, based on the fact that, in 2018, there were only four systems on the island, which were, he said, “technologically very obsolete.”
All these systems will allow, according to the manager, “to provide in the coming years an important source of supply for the agricultural, tourist and irrigation sector, for urban green areas and all this with the added benefit of ending the discharges into the sea of purified water”.
Other presentations focused on the experience of reclaimed water in agriculture in Tenerife by Oswaldo Renz from the insular area of Agriculture or on the experience of actions in connecting homes to the sewage system by Eduardo Alemán from the Teidagua company.
Likewise, extensive purification, also known as natural purification, was analyzed to give way to the second block of interventions that dealt with BALTEN’s experiences in infrastructures and planning in the field of reclaimed water, the challenges and opportunities in wastewater treatment. .
On behalf of the Aqualia company, Zouhayr Arbib, head of its R+D+i sustainability department, presented the Life Intext project, which represents a commitment to the sustainability of wastewater treatment in small and medium-sized towns.
LIFE Intext is designed for small and medium-sized urban centers, so its potential implementation on the island of Tenerife could contribute to a great extent so that its rural areas can meet their obligations in the treatment of wastewater in a sustainable way.
The local company Tagua exhibited purification solutions in small nuclei or in industries. Finally, a round table moderated by the journalist Antonio Salazar was organized, where aspects related to technologies, regeneration, and other aspects related to the water sector in Tenerife were discussed.
