Walter Finch
RESIDENTS on the Costa del Sol will be breathing a sigh of relief after recent rains reversed the decision to ban the filling of private pools.
Estepona has become the first municipality in Malaga province to announce that urbanisation swimming pools as well as private ones will be permitted to be filled and refilled during the summer.
The mayor, Jose María García Urbano, thanked the recent rains for the decision, which have surged the region’s water capacity to levels similar to those reached last year.
However Urbano announced that the town hall will put a new system in place to make sure that these pools use water responsibly.
Some features that will be looked for include having protective awnings to prevent water evaporation or wastewater treatment plants that can recover lost water.
Pools which meet these criteria will have their use guaranteed in periods of drought.
It is hoped that the measures and policies that Estepona is putting in place will have an impact on other municipalities along the coast.
The town hall has said it is willing to share its water resources with the other municipalities on the same high-pressure supply network.
Those resources will be amplified by new water infrastructures that it has been working to put in place in the face of the ongoing drought since last year.
READ MORE: Andalucia to decide on filling private swimming pools following rain over Semana Santa
Among the first measures is the installation of a desalination plant near the Padron River, which will start operating in May and will produce 2,900 cubic metres (2.9 million litres) of fresh water per day.
This is in addition to the desalination plant in the Castor River area, which has been under construction since last December and is expected to start being installed in June.
The town hall is preparing an enormous 53,000 square metre plot of land on which it will be located, which will produce 8,000 cubic metres (8 million litres) per day in its first phase.
To all this is added the commissioning of two wells in the Padron area, which had been unused since the 1990s. They will add 2,000 (two million litres) cubic metres per day to the supply network.
The town hall has obtained permission from the Junta to carry out drillings to build new brackish water wells, which would provide up to 3,400 cubic metres (3.4 million litres) per day.
Urbano was also quick to remind that, although the municipality’s water is assured for this summer, both residents and local authorities must still use water responsibly.
