Prohens ends the water war and forces Palma to buy 30% more desalinated water.

PalmThe Palma Regional Government and City Council presented an agreement this Monday that some experts consider historic: Cort will purchase up to 12.9 cubic hectometers from the desalination plant. This agreement ends a tense relationship between Palma City Council and the Regional Government regarding water, as Jaime Martínez, who made no statement at the end of the event and left the spotlight to the President of the Regional Government, Marga Prohens, did not want to purchase desalinated water. The reason for this reluctance is that the Government produces desalinated water through Abaqua, and therefore, purchasing it means paying for it and consequently having to foot the bill. Prohens has managed to end Palma's water war, and Emaya will purchase more of the desalination plant's production.

According to some calculations made by technicians consulted by ARA Baleares, this agreement could mean that Palma will end up purchasing up to 30% more desalinated water than it has done until now, which will significantly reduce the pressure on the aquifers.

Since the mayor of Palma had promised not to increase water rates for residents, the public company responsible for supplying it, Emaya, was reluctant to purchase desalinated water, and what it had been doing in recent years was "supplying itself from the aquifers," in the words of a technical expert from the Administration. This fact was putting groundwater at risk, since a long period of drought and an increase in consumption had accumulated in recent years. Emaya had even started a study to build its own desalination plant and avoid having to buy water from the Government."It would have taken six years, and there wouldn't be a drop left in the aquifers," explains the same source familiar with the situation.

The agreement had expired nine years earlier.

Now, with this agreement, signed by the Regional Minister for the Sea and the Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, and the President of Emaya, Llorenç Bauzá, the supply of up to 12.9 cubic hectometres of desalinated water per year is guaranteed for the next four years, from the desalination system managed by Abaqua.

In a press conference following the signing of the agreement, the Regional Minister for the Sea and the Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, together with the President of Emaya, Llorenç Bauzà, explained that the renewal of this agreement is "especially important because the previous one had expired several years ago, specifically in Palma."

"Emaya is already connected to the grid at full capacity. What was missing was the formalization of this agreement," said Lafuente, adding that "this guarantees the supply to the city," because "it represents a significant increase in the amount of the previous agreement, compared to what Abaqua and the Government agreed to supply to Palma, 13 cubic hectometres of guaranteed supply per year." In this way, "it contributes to ensuring that Palma has a sufficient water supply."

The City Council's obsession with building apartments

The tension between the Government, and specifically the Ministry of the Sea and the Water Cycle, responsible for the islands' water resources, and Palma City Council It reached its peak when Palma City Council confirmed that it wanted to move forward with 20,000 new Housing to address the housing shortage faced by citizens. Environmentalists denounced the initiative's lack of any basis in terms of water supply, as even experts warned during the processing of Palma's General Plan that growth is impossible without limits. "It's a mistake to think that growth can continue indefinitely in a territory with finite water resources," warned GOB spokespersons. Mallorca's water reserves are also not encouraging: in June of this year, they stood at 48%, one of the lowest levels of the decade. Despite some episodes of intense rain, the dry and compacted soils make it difficult for water to infiltrate and recharge the aquifers.

For this reason, the Palma City Council's announcement strained the regional government's relationship with the regional government, as the aquifer situation this summer has been very worrying. In fact, Palma has been overexploiting groundwater resources for many years, while neglecting to utilize the full capacity of its desalinated water. Experts warn that coastal wells are becoming saline, and that recovery will be nearly impossible.

For this reason, Monday's agreement between the Government and Palma City Council is considered an important milestone.

Desalination was supposed to solve the problem 20 years ago.

Twenty years ago, Palma was considered a model of water management for its commitment to desalination, a technology that was supposed to allow the aquifers to recover after decades of overexploitation. Today, the situation is exactly the opposite: the Sant Jordi, Pla, and na Burguesa aquifers—the city's main suppliers of groundwater—are in a state of overexploitation, and the capital only uses half of the desalinated water it could.

According to data from the Balearic Water Agency collected by ARA Baleares in a recent report, the Sant Jordi aquifer is being extracted at a rate of 121% above its natural recharge capacity. This means that more water is extracted each year than infiltrates. "It's a path to collapse," UIB professor Cels García, a hydrology expert, recently warned. "When an aquifer becomes salinized, its recovery is extremely slow, if not impossible."

Desalinated water, an underutilized option

In 2005, Palma consumed more than 20 cubic hectometres of water from the desalination plant. In 2024, it was just over 11. The City Council acknowledges that reducing the use of desalination represents economic savings, since each cubic metre of desalinated water is more expensive than groundwater. But, as experts point out, this "cheap water" has a very high environmental cost.

"The problem is that desalination is not just a question of price, but of sustainability," environmental spokespersons for the GOB have stated on more than one occasion at the ARA Baleares. "As long as we continue to drain the aquifers without giving them a break, seawater will continue to enter and salinize them."

Marine intrusion and loss of quality

The overexploitation of coastal wells has caused a phenomenon of marine intrusion: saltwater advances inland and replaces freshwater. This has increased the concentration of chlorides and dissolved salts, deteriorating water quality. In some parts of the Bay of Palma, analyses already show worrying levels.

The situation is not unique to Palma: according to Greenpeace, nearly 45% of the aquifers in the Balearic Islands are in "poor chemical condition" or "poor quantitative condition." But the capital experiences the greatest pressure due to population density and tourist activity.

Other municipalities will recover.

This agreement also "establishes that a number of municipalities that, until now, were supplied through Emaya will gradually be supplied through Abaqua." These municipalities "were Alaró, Binissalem, Santa Maria, and Bunyola," explained Minister José Manuel Lafuente. Furthermore, as the Minister explained, the new collaboration framework regulates the exchange of water flows between administrations in cases of supply needs in Calvià and Marratxí, as well as the supply to Palma from the Marineta aquifer.

The reduction of losses in the Emaya network and the measures to improve the system's efficiency complete a management model that places Palma as a benchmark in sustainability and water planning, in line with the objectives of the Balearic Islands Hydrological Plan and the European guidelines for water savings and efficiency.