Palma will draw 10 million more liters of water each day to grow
The Emaya management plan does not propose concrete savings measures, but rather bets on extracting from aquifers and a new desalination plant
PalmaPalma wants to continue growing in population and Jaime Martínez's team does not intend to give up despite the lack of water that the Hydric Resources technicians already detected and confirmed in 2023. This is one of the conclusions of the Sustainable Water Management Plan promoted by Emaya, which has just completed the public exhibition period. The document advocates for increasing desalination and extracting more water from the subsoil: up to 10 million more liters per day than currently obtained, despite the delicate situation of the aquifers.
The plan assumes that Palma will have a population of 572,178 inhabitants in 2040 and calculates that the city will need to capture at least 37.59 cubic hectometers of water annually to sustain this scenario. However, the document does not question whether this growth is compatible with the island's water limits, but rather starts from the fact that the city's population will continue to increase and proposes how to guarantee its supply with new water sources.
The context is particularly delicate. The plan itself admits that, by putting the desalination plant and the new intakes into full operation, the real availability of water resources will be 40.32 hm³ in 2040 due to the reduction in rainfall caused by climate change. A figure very similar to the demand that population growth will generate (37.59 hm³). Therefore, despite the increase in water production, a very dry year would put the system at its limit.
The document arrives at a time of particular political pressure due to the housing shortage and with the commitment of the mayor and the president of the Government, Marga Prohens, to resolve the problem with new developments. In fact, the need to facilitate the construction of 5,000 new homes has led to measures such as intensifying land use for developers, among others, which have drawn criticism from the opposition.
Emaya's response to this need foresees few concrete measures regarding the improvement of water demand management and, instead, opts for a new desalination plant and three new underground intakes.
Desalination, structural
Until now it was a complementary resource and now a new station is incorporated
The document goes a step further and opts for desalination as a central resource for Palma's future water model. The Sustainable Water Management Plan defines the future municipal desalination plant –a project that Martinez's team wants to promote to avoid control by the Government's Water Resources department– as a “structural pillar” of the system and foresees a new installation of up to 36 hm³ annually.
The decision clashes head-on with the message that the European Commission is sending these days. Brussels has warned that “the water crisis is not resolved solely with desalination plants” and argues that these infrastructures should only be used after reducing demand, improving efficiency, and promoting reuse. The EU, as environmental groups and experts have repeatedly stated, also warns of the energy and environmental costs associated with this model and insists that the priority should be to adapt consumption to available resources before multiplying water production.
Two years ago, Government Water Resources technicians already warned during the processing of Palma's General Plan that there was not enough water for all the planned growth, and this was even before Martinez and Prohens announced the construction of thousands of apartments in Palma.
The short term is straining
The new desalination plant will not arrive for another five or six years
The construction of a new desalination plant will not be immediate, but will require five or six years. This situation has led to the promotion of new underground abstractions, when experts and the Government's Water Resources department insist on the need to reduce groundwater extraction. "It's not even put out to tender yet," explain sources from the municipal administration.
That Palma currently needs more water than it has "causes overexploitation of aquifers," says the spokesperson for the entity Aliança per l'Aigua, Juan Antonio Calvo. "Since it is not intended to renounce urban growth, new extractions will be opened, because they know that the incorporation of the desalination plant will be in the medium term," he criticizes.
According to Emaya sources consulted by ARA Balears, the plan "does incorporate a wide range of measures to reduce consumption and improve efficiency in water use while the new desalination plant is not operational." The company lists actions such as renewing the network to reduce leaks, remote reading, saving campaigns, reuse of regenerated water, and the use of rainwater and greywater. "The objective is to guarantee the resilience of the system and minimize pressure on natural resources, and to move towards a more sustainable model adapted to future conditions," assures the municipal company.
But the document, according to a technician consulted by ARA Balears who requests anonymity, "does not at any time propose reducing the projected global demand or limiting urban growth while the new infrastructures do not exist." The saving measures appear as complementary mechanisms, but the plan concludes likewise that it will be necessary to "increase the availability of capture."
What are the new wells?
Xorrigo, the Fita del Ram and Son Mir's Ullal will be the new extractions
In addition to desalination, the other major focus of the plan is the increase of underground water abstraction, as it will be more immediate. The document incorporates up to 3.86 cubic hectometers annually of new extractions or underground contributions: 2.29 hm³ in Xorrigo, 0.07 hm³ in Fita del Ram, and 1.5 hm³ in Ullal de Son Mir. In total, that's 10.6 million new liters per day from underground sources.
The figure is approximately equivalent to 10% of Palma's total water availability projected for 2040. All this in a context where Mallorca's aquifers have accumulated decades of pressure, salinization, and deterioration due to overexploitation. Emaya defends that any new abstraction "is always considered with the aim of guaranteeing the system's resilience without compromising the good condition of water bodies" and assures that the model "opts for diversification of sources and the progressive reduction of groundwater extraction."
Juan Antonio Calvo, who in addition to being head of the Alliance for Water is also a drafter of the Water Plan linked to the urban planning of Ibiza, believes that Palma uses much more lenient criteria than those applied on the Pitiusa island to justify water sufficiency. "The first thing that caught my attention is that they do not sufficiently justify water sufficiency because they make an annual balance," he explains. Calvo recalls that, in the case of Ibiza, Water Resources required them to justify availability for specific moments of maximum demand. "It's not the same to say you have desalinated water for a specific year as what you actually have on August 18th," he warns.
The expert points out that the document also does not set timelines or link urban development to verifiable water objectives, as was done in Ibiza. "I don't see any timeline here, which makes it a declaration of good intentions, like a blank check," he adds.
The opposition criticizes the plan
MÉS per Palma demands that growth be conditioned on available water
MÉS per Palma and the PSIB have criticized and presented allegations regarding what they consider an excessive project obsessed with urban growth. According to the spokesperson for MÉS per Palma, Neus Truyol, the new extractions from the subsoil demonstrate “the destructive model promoted by the PP and Vox”, and she demands that “urban growth be conditioned on real water availability, limiting large consumptions and luxury uses”.
The opposition reminds the municipal government that it cannot ignore “the impact of the urban policies it has approved in the last three years”, referring to the projects for large apartment buildings being promoted to combat the housing shortage. “If we continue down this path, what is a right today, like water, will be a privilege tomorrow”, Truyol remarks.
It remains to be seen what the position of the Government will be, the ultimate responsible party for water, especially for that from the subsoil, taking into account that Palma's aquifers are already overexploited.
