An express connection to bring water from the Ebro to Barcelona: experts set it in eight months

The Government defends that taking water by boat from Sagunto to Barcelona is the fastest and safest option to guarantee supply in the metropolitan area, once the swamps worsen their current water deficit starting in the summer.

It is one of the arguments, in addition to the existing opposition, especially in Tarragona, that is used to avoid a possible interconnection of the Ebro with the Aguas Ter-Llobregat (ATL) network.

The Intercollegiate Water Observatory, in which colleges of engineers and economists participate, however continues to pressure to move this infrastructure forward.

It has prepared a study that ensures that this 65-kilometer pipeline, with its pumping stations, could be ready in just eight months if the Executive opened an urgent process for the study process, land expropriation and bidding to carry it out.

In his opinion, this is one of the essential solutions to end the structural chapters of drought that Catalonia faces with the climate crisis.

And they consider that it could be the salvation for both territories, since the possibility of sending water flows in both one direction and the other would now allow the Barcelona area to be saved with the water surpluses of the Ebro and, if the tables were reversed, also the The area of ​​Tarragona that now drinks from the Ebro could benefit from an alleged surplus of water from the Ter-Llobregat network.

According to their calculations, the works would cost 275 million euros (expropriations and taxes apart) and would last about 32 weeks.

The proposal of the water observatory - which brings together industrial engineers, civil engineers and agronomists, as well as economists - considers that its proposal is viable for calendar purposes as long as a distribution of batches of work and purchases of supplies is carried out and Avoid competitive bidding, which would greatly delay the process.

The final construction project could be ready within the tenth week of starting the work and in the meantime work could have been carried out on ordering all the necessary materials.

“It is a structural solution, if we thought about creating a network from scratch, we would make this same proposal,” said Carles Conill, president of the intercollegiate entity, this Wednesday, who described the interconnection with the Ebro as “the solution” to future droughts and warned that The swamps of the internal Catalan basins, from which the Ter-Llobregat network is supplied, continue to shrink and are already below 15% of their capacity, which further limits Barcelona's capacity to withstand without new rains.

If it existed, it could provide around four cubic hectometers of water per day, more than half of what is now coming out of the reservoirs in northeastern Catalonia.

The project on which the engineers have worked, which has involved companies specializing in this type of works, involves joining the water network of the Tarragona Water Consortium (which depends on wells and the Ebro mini-travase) and the ATL network .

The start of the works is located in Tarragona in a tank, where the first pump would be installed that would allow the water to reach Santa Miquel d'Olèrdola, located at an elevation 200 meters higher.

From there you would reach Masquefa, through a pipeline that is already built and that would end up being the connection with the Barcelona network.

The Mequinenza reservoir, where the water would come from, is today at 84% of its capacity, with 1,166 cubic hectometers, 11 times more than in all the reservoirs in the internal Catalan basins.

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