The danger of drinking from the tap: 145,000 islanders live without drinking water

PalmaAt the Manacor agri-food estate, the bustle around the drinking water fountain installed by the City Council in 2021 does not stop. People go there to fill jugs because the water that flows from the taps has not been fit for consumption for more than forty years. With a population of about 30,000 inhabitants, Manacor is the most populous city in Spain that still does not have drinking water in the entire domestic network. In the Balearic Islands, nearly 145,000 people live in areas with water considered unfit for consumption or at risk.

The capital of the Llevant region has 11,240 meters, but only 4% receive drinking water from the pilot treatment plant launched in 2022. “It is a chronic situation, it is a complex problem, which depends on a combination of factors, and now we could say that it is the perfect storm,” explains Francesc Grimalt, manager of the municipal company SAM.

The sanitary limit for nitrate concentration is set at 50 milligrams per liter, but Manacor distributes water with values of 100 milligrams. The receipts warn that the water cannot be consumed. According to the World Health Organization, the excess of nitrates represents a serious risk for infants fed with a bottle, because it can reduce the blood's capacity to transport oxygen and cause methemoglobinemia.

The origin of the problem dates back decades. Grimalt explains that the Manacor aquifer is confined and that the intensive use of fertilizers in the old irrigation areas infiltrated nitrates into it. “In Sa Pobla, a part of the nitrates has been draining towards the Albufera, while in Manacor they have not left. The analyses are not improving and we do not know when the aquifer will be able to be cleaned: we can speak of a realistic horizon of half a century,” he warns.

Depending on bottled or treated water

The lack of drinking water transfers a cost to families that in other municipalities is incorporated into the public service. According to municipal calculations, a family of four members needs approximately 2,920 liters annually for drinking and 1,277 for cooking. According to municipal calculations, a family of four members can spend up to 1,600 euros annually on drinking water, to which water for cooking, travel, and systems like osmosis are added.

Antònia is 80 years old and lives in an apartment without an elevator. “At my age, I cannot carry water jugs up the stairs, and I always have to depend on whether my relatives go buy them for me and bring them up,” she explains. The lack of potability thus becomes a matter of inequality.

Rafel Mulet owns a restaurant in the center of Manacor and operates with an osmosis system connected to the kitchen tap and the coffee machine. With this water, he cooks the dishes he serves every day. “The Health Department has never warned us that we must cook with bottled or treated water, but they have controlled the osmosis water that we serve,” he points out. A gesture as simple as filling a pot to make pasta becomes complicated in catering businesses. “If we had to cook with bottled water, we would need a specific storage area to keep it, and in this premises, we cannot afford it, neither for space nor for cost.”

A problem widespread throughout the Islands

The case of Manacor is the one that concentrates the most population in a single municipality, but it is not the only one. The Water Alliance has evaluated the quality of water for human consumption and concludes that during 2025, 98,452 registered inhabitants lived in areas where the water was not suitable. The figure rises to 145,027 when adding the areas that accumulate repeated non-compliances that may anticipate a future declaration of unsuitability. The Ministry of Health sampled 144 supply networks in the Balearic Islands in 2025. Of these, 91.7% were classified as suitable, although 13.9% showed some incident that required corrective measures. The remaining 8.3% was classified as unsuitable for consumption.

“It is a structural problem, they are not isolated episodes. There is a generalized poor state of the aquifers that causes the water coming out of the taps to be of poor quality,” explains Juan Calvo, director of the Water Alliance. The report confirms that several areas have accumulated non-compliances without interruption since 2016 and that, in cases like Manacor, the problem has been dragging on for decades. The entity points to the overexploitation and continued salinization of the aquifers, caused by years of urban growth and demographic pressure.

The nature of the problem varies according to the territory: in the Pla, agricultural pollution by nitrates predominates; in coastal areas like Santanyí, salinization; and in Menorca, pollution linked to agricultural and livestock activity. Ibiza and Formentera depend on desalination due to the deterioration or small size of the aquifers.

“Ibiza and Formentera are like patients in the ICU who need to be connected to machines because, otherwise, they would die,” summarizes Calvo. He also warns of another “silent and generalized” problem in rural land: wells that become salinized, run dry, or present nitrate contamination without the homes having an alternative network. “It is no longer just that the water is not suitable, but that there is simply none. In Mallorca, it has already started to happen; in Ibiza, it has already happened and will increase if we continue to grow,” he warns.

Menorca, record of non-compliances

If there is an island that particularly concentrates quality problems, it is Menorca. The Water Alliance report places the non-compliant analyses recorded in 2025 at 26%, concentrated mainly in Maó, es Castell, and Ciutadella, affecting 22,705 registered inhabitants.

In Maó, the main problem is the high concentration of nitrates. Ciutadella combines nitrate pollution with salinization. According to the Alliance, its groundwater mass has been exploited above 104% of the natural recharge capacity. Menorca closed August with water reserves at 33%, the lowest record of the last decade, and it is the island with the lowest reserves.

Ciutadella concentrates 37.5% of Menorca's water consumption and represents one of the most extreme cases in the Archipelago: urban supply alone extracts 3.60 cubic hectometers, above the 3.26 allocated. In this context, the Directorate General of Public Health has proposed sanctioning the City Council with nearly 580,000 euros.

The City Council maintains that most of the infractions are due to “a lack of documentation or updating” of the Water Health Plan and the control plan, in addition to maintenance issues, and remarks that the files are still in the allegations phase. “These are not sanctions for water quality, but mainly for documentary and maintenance issues,” defends the Councilor for the Environment, Pere Fiol.

The City Council ensures that the water currently supplied is suitable for consumption and expects to reduce extraction from wells when water from the desalination plant reaches the Caragolí reservoirs, between 2027 and 2028. “This will allow for resting the wells, reducing their salinity, and offering higher quality water.” Meanwhile, it states that it has taken measures to improve cycle management.

Desalinating without opening the door to growth

Given the deterioration of aquifers, the Government has turned to desalination and high-capacity water networks as one of the main responses. Water Resources is planning a new desalination plant in Menorca and another in the southeast of Mallorca, in addition to expanding and modernizing existing plants. This strategy would allow for the reduction of extractions, mixing desalinated water with well water, and lowering the concentration of nitrates, chlorides, and lime, but it is a solution that does not address the root causes, such as permanent growth.

Manacor had opted for its own solution: a water treatment plant to extend the pilot experience of La Volta and El Serralt, but unfavorable reports from Water Resources forced the termination of the contract. The Government is opting to bring in water from the high-capacity network and, later on, from the future Migjorn desalination plant.

The manager of SAM argues that external water will allow for the dilution of nitrates and bring them closer to regulatory levels, but that the natural recovery of the aquifer will take decades. He also warns that bringing in new water cannot replace demand management: “The solutions must allow for restricting and containing consumption. We can reduce the allocation per person, but if we go from serving 30,000 inhabitants to 50,000 or 60,000, the problem will continue to exist”.

Despite not having been able to execute the water treatment plant, Manacor has made progress in the management of the water cycle. SAM has sectorized a large part of the network to detect breakdowns and leaks in real time, has significantly reduced losses, and has completed the installation of nearly 9,000 digital meters, which allows for the identification of interior leaks. The plenary session has also initially approved progressive block tariffs that protect basic consumption and make higher usage more expensive.

For Calvo, these steps should be a prerequisite for any external supply: reducing leaks, installing meters, approving progressive tariffs, limiting high consumption, and reusing treated water. “If we simply bring water to municipalities that have managed the resource poorly, we are rewarding those that have not done their homework,” he maintains. The arrival of new flows, he warns, can generate a pull effect: “Since we already have water, then we can go back to growing”.