The Begur drought emergency plan, which includes 160 measures, is showing results. Although the consumption of 239 liters per inhabitant per day allowed by the Catalan Water Authority (ACA) has not yet been reached, large-scale consumers have entered, being discovered, sanctioned and threatened with a flow that would cause household appliances to not work. Some people turned off the tap straight away. The environmental engineer of Begur, Xavier Turró, ideologist of the emergency plan, has been dealing with them from day one. Some even go so far as to consume as if there were more than 300 people living in the house. By digitizing the meters, you can control what is happening with the water at any time, be it for watering or showering.
Begur is a town of 4,177 inhabitants in the heart of the Costa Brava, which has a summer population of over 30,000. Almost a quarter of those registered are foreigners and the majority of residents work in the service sector. There are 1,650 primary residences and more than twice as many secondary residences, 3,970. It has 28 hotels, two campsites, 1,652 holiday homes for tourist use and 1,812 swimming pools. “Despite what everyone thinks, swimming pools are not the problem, the damage is actually caused by properties with large gardens that their owners do not want to landscape,” says the technician. In August, several cases of automatic irrigation in the early hours of the morning were detected.
More information
In December 2022, Begur’s consumption was 576 liters per inhabitant per day; and last September it was reduced to 356 liters. Since the ACA declared a state of emergency due to the drought, the council has been “with great courage,” Turró emphasizes, ensuring strict compliance with established water restriction measures and educating neighbors and visitors. Because you have all the digitized household and industrial meters (5,737 in total), you can see who the major consumers are and when they waste. Every week the entire contents of the meters are disposed of and analyzed. 24 industrial users were identified, consuming 18% of the total water.
The measures, carried out in the midst of a drought emergency, revealed at the start of the controls that 30% of the water was lost through leaks. Therefore, in order not to exceed the permitted quota, it was decided to reduce the liters that each resident could consume per day. The maximum value was set at 159 liters and consumption of eight people per household was considered permissible. That’s 1,272 liters per household per day. The technician, recognizing his “indignation”, has identified blatant cases of consumption corresponding to 170, 232 or 326 people in a single house. In the case of Sa Tuna, 363,141 liters were consumed between July 31 and August 8. The strict control has made it possible to identify companies that have issued invoices that technicians suspect are false and that are expressly used to justify excessive consumption. And also fake occupancy certificates that estimated the number of residents in a house at 50 people.
In the overall campaign, 1,290 alerts have been sent and so far 63 large consumers have been fined 750 euros, with a similar profile: unregistered neighbors, with high purchasing power, living in urbanizations. Local and foreign. These sanctions include a “warning”: in the event of a repeat offense, a device will be installed – a metal element inserted into the water connection – that will reduce the flow to such an extent that no device will work and the supply will be cut off. hours or whole. “This measure must have frightened everyone because they stopped drinking colds,” says Turró.
What influences the most is what happens next. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe to
The recent visit of the director of the ACA, Samuel Reyes, to Begur allowed him to “understand very well how to know the data”. “If we want to make restrictions, we need to know the data. Their digitization service seemed impeccable to me, you can see when they water, when they shower, etc. This allows us to identify which areas of the place have the highest consumption and take corrective measures,” he says. In this sense, he emphasizes that “although consumption is still above the permitted amount, it has fallen by more than 200 liters, which must be recognized.” Begur has also replaced the grass in the flowerbeds at the entrance to the town with native plants with low water consumption replaced.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter