Councillor José Ramón González de Zárate in Benidorm had a reassuring message about drinking water for residents and visitors. “This summer, the drinking water supply is guaranteed and that is why we are not taking any additional measures”.
The Benidorm Drought Monitoring Committee held its first meeting this week following the approval last Monday in plenary of the creation of this body. González de Zárate stated that the supply of drinking water in the high season is “absolutely guaranteed”. And that any follow-up measures would only be taken “if we have an indication of this from the Water Consortium”. But, with the current scenario, that won’t be necessary.
Awareness campaign
The agenda item during the meeting was the start of an awareness campaign by Hidraqua. “All residents will see this reflected in their water bills.”
In addition, González de Zárate emphasised that they are looking at wells in Polop de la Marina to investigate their capacity and possible use. “They are wells owned by the municipality, they have not been used for almost 50 years. We’re going to do some soundings to determine their capacity and to know if we can use the water,” the councillor said. He further pointed out that Benidorm has transferred the rest of the wells that the city had before – that of Beniardá – to the Water Consortium.
Call for works on reservoirs
Furthermore, González de Zárate again called on the Hydrographic Confederation of the Júcar and the national government to “make a special effort and carry out work on the reservoirs of Guadalest and Amadorio. These are needed to prevent water wastage and to dredge the two reservoirs to increase their capacity.” “We need to take advantage of these times of low capacity to make these investments,” the councillor said.
Reused water
Today’s meeting also discussed the possibility for private communities to use recycled water. For irrigation, for example. “In the same way we do with hosing down streets or watering public parks and gardens.”
González de Zárate explained that “a large investment has been made to use water with a lower salinity content for irrigation. Hidraqua is working on actions aimed at communities that can use that water. Meanwhile, in Benidorm, the councillor continued, “we are working on the tariff to be applied to this reused water. This should be cheaper for users and therefore also a big saving.
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