El Comité de la sequía abre expediente sancionador a ocho municipios por no informar de su consumo

A story that seems not to have made many blogs yet. Old news? Not round here it isn't.

Andaluc�a24Horas



The Junta drought committee drought initiates sanctions investigation against eight municipalities for failing to inform them about water consumption

The Drought Management Committee has decided to initiate sanctions investigations against eight municipalities of the province of Malaga, affected by the drought decree that declares an exceptional drought situation in the capital, the Guadalhorce Valley and the Western Costa del Sol.
The municipalities that will be sanctioned are Álora, Benahavís, Casares, Coín, Istán, Manilva, Marbella and Ojén. These municipalities face fines of between 30,000 and 300,000 euros. The 18 Málaga municipalities included in the drought decree as well as the large water consumers (more than 250,000 cubic meters a year), are obliged to provide data about their water consumption. To date the responses are patchy. Regarding the 64 large water consumers, the Junta has initiated sanctions investigations against 11 of them, the remainder have been granted and extension of one week to provide the data [This means that NONE have provided the information to date]. The drought decree also established a term of two months for the writing of emergency plans on the part of municipalities with over 20,000 inhabitants. The period has been extended until next the 20 of February so that the municipalities that not yet have supplied emergency plans (Alhaurín el Grande, Alhaurín de la Torre, Coín, Estepona, Marbella and Mijas) do it. Otherwise sanctions will be applied against them.

All very well and good, eh? Well, we are in the wettest season of the year, and water reserves are 25% BELOW the AVERAGE annual level. Some of the regions reservoirs are still only at 10% capacity. There is no possibility of piping water from other parts of the country, the pipelines simply do not exist and plans are beset (as usual) by political in-fighting. The proposed solution is more desalination plants. There are only two, one in Almeria, the other outside Marbella. A third is planned for 2008.

Looks like more land becoming available to film spaghetti westerns!