With an estimated low future supply of water from the Transfer, many irrigation communities already see their future threatened. This is certainly the case of those that populate the area around La Pedrera reservoir.
Built to regulate the flows that arrive to the southeast from the Tagus, its surroundings show the scarcity of water resources from the aqueduct. Now, a 52 million euro investment project, promoted by the CHS and the Generalitat, plans to reduce this dependence by increasing the water that these communities receive from the Torrevieja and Orihuela Costa treatment plants.
Until now, the regional administration had been racking its brains to find a way to retain rainwater in the basin that flows into the Torrevieja lagoons. Now ruled out due to the environmental impact it would have on the protected ecosystem (it was planned to locate a reservoir next to the Laguna Rosa), the solution is to increase the supply of regenerated water, taking advantage of existing pipelines and laying new ones.
The communities that will benefit are: Villamartín, Barranco de Hurchillo, Campo de Salinas, La Estafeta, Fuensanta de Jacarilla, Las Cañadas, Las Dehesas, Mengoloma, Pilar de la Horadada, Río Nacimiento, San Joaquín, San Miguel de Salinas, San Onofre and Torremendo, Santo Domingo and Campoamor.
All of these communities of farmers maintain an irrigable surface of 10,949 hectares that extends beyond Campo de Salinas to Pilar de la Horadada along the coastline and further north from La Pedrera towards the headland of Hurchillo and the Dehesa de Pinohermoso.
The annual volumes that will be channelled are 7.2 cubic hectometres from the Torrevieja treatment plant, 3.1 hectometres from the Orihuela Costa and 3 hectometres from the Torrevieja desalination plant.
With this investment, the proposal to capture rainwater next to the Torrevieja lagoons is now redundant.
The total budget of the project amounts to 51.9 million euros – partly financed with European funds, however it is not expected to be completed before 2026.
The complex system that will deliver these flows consists of 50 pipelines to the different diversion ponds for each community valued at 14.9 million and which also include the Algorfa (La Finca) and Villamartín golf courses.
Additionally, it is planned to build four reservoirs with a capacity for 963,000 cubic meters of water (10.7 million), as well as several tanks (700,000 euros), six pumping stations (3.5 million) and three floating photovoltaic installations, one of 1,500 peak kilowatts and the other two of 1,000 kilowatts, valued at 2.8 million euros.
These works will also complement those already being carried out by the Generalitat at the Orihuela Costa treatment plant to divert part of its flows to the Torrevieja and Pilar de la Horadada stations. The greater reuse of water for agriculture will help to mitigate the overflow of untreated water from this facility to the beaches during episodes of heavy rains.
