The GOB asks to stop the plan for the 10,000 flats in Palma: "They want to create water on paper"

PalmaThe GOB has formally requested that Palma City Councilhalt the processing of the Sustainable Water Management Plan (PGSA), with which Jaime Martínez and his team aim to obtain the necessary technical justification to have more water and be able to move forward with the 9,000 to 10,000 extra apartments from the strategic projects. Projects that are already being processed by different developers, but which both the City Council and the interested parties know cannot obtain a license at this time if the amount of water available in the municipality is not increased. This Sustainable Water Management Plan (PGSA) was initially approved by Cort on March 26th, but, according to the environmental organization, it contains very significant errors that force "its withdrawal". MÉS per Palma had already warned that this Plan did not meet all the requirements and denounced its approval due to the increase in consumption it foresees.

The environmentalists registered a document this Monday reminding Cort that it cannot process a plan of this significance without the corresponding "ordinary environmental assessment" as required by regulations, since the increase in water consumption being proposed to build 10,000 new apartments is very significant. The entity maintains that the document "presents technical deficiencies in the calculation of future water availability".

One of the GOB's main arguments is that the plan itself admits that the new housing measures will increase the population and water demand, but this reality is not clearly incorporated into the final balance. The document acknowledges that the population capacity foreseen by the 2023 General Plan "is altered upwards" and that this will lead to higher water consumption. Despite this, when calculating the needs for the year 2040, it continues to use a population of 572,178 inhabitants, the one foreseen by the previous planning. This error demonstrates, according to the environmentalists, that the plan prepared by Emaya is incorrect and cannot serve as an instrument to authorize new consumption.

From 226 liters to 180 without proof of how

The other major objection from the GOB concerns the projected consumption. Emaya calculates that in the year 2040, Palma will need 37.59 cubic hectometers annually because it assumes a consumption of 180 liters per inhabitant per day. The organization points out, however, that the data incorporated in the PGSA itself shows that between 2013 and 2024, the actual provision has fluctuated between 226 and 247 liters, and that the latest available record is precisely 226 liters in the year 2024.

According to the organization's calculations, moving from the current 226 liters to the projected 180 would imply a reduction of more than 20%, and applied to the population projected for 2040, it would represent approximately 9.6 hm³ of water each year. The GOB does not question that reducing this provision could be a goal, but rather denounces that the plan uses it as if it were a guaranteed saving without providing a technical report that explains how it will be achieved. According to the environmentalists, it is necessary to technically accredit how the average consumption per inhabitant will be reduced, since the real figure is far above 180 liters.

According to sources from the organization consulted by ARA Balears, "it seems as if they want to create water on paper, by setting a consumption figure lower than what the population of Palma is actually spending." "This may respond to the need to authorize more apartments, but it can only be done if there is actually more water," they state.

The PGSA does provide for investments to reduce losses and improve efficiency, but, according to the document, it does not allow them to be fully linked to the 180-liter goal. For example, it provides for three million euros annually to renovate the network without quantifying the water savings that will result from it. Other actions do have an estimated impact, such as the sectorization of the network – 1 hm³ annually – and remote reading – 0.4 hm³ –, but the GOB points out that there is no sum that validates the projected global reduction. It also detects a contradiction between the 15.25 million that remote reading costs in one file of the plan and the 5.25 million that appear in the final table.

A desalination plant of up to 36 hm³

The most legally compelling point of the document concerns the environmental assessment. The PGSA provides for a new municipal desalination plant with a maximum capacity of 36 hm³ per year, the exploitation of the Xorrigo groundwater body to obtain 2.29 hm³, and the abstraction of 3.7 hm³ from the Síquia torrent, among other actions. The desalination plant is defined by the document itself as a “strategic structural” and “essential” infrastructure.

The GOB considers that these magnitudes directly trigger Balearic environmental legislation. Legislative Decree 1/2020 subjects desalination plants with more than 1,000 m³ of new daily capacity and groundwater extractions equal to or greater than 500,000 m³ per year to an ordinary environmental impact assessment. These are indeed the thresholds included in the regulations. The desalination plant planned for Palma would reach approximately 98,600 m³ per day, almost one hundred times the first threshold, while Xorrigo would provide 2.29 million m³ per year, more than four times the second.

From here, the GOB argues that the entire PGSA must undergo an ordinary strategic environmental assessment, because the same regulation requires the evaluation of public water resource management plans that establish the framework for authorizing projects subject to environmental impact assessment.

The organization also warns that Balearic legislation provides for invalidating consequences if a plan subject to environmental assessment is approved without having passed this procedure. Therefore, it demands that Cort suspend the processing now, certify whether an environmental assessment of the PGSA exists, and, if it does not, revert the procedure to the moment when it should have been initiated.

The GOB has also requested access to the complete file, including the Water Resources report, the studies supporting the 180-liter target, the network loss studies, the concession titles and the feasibility study for the new desalination plant.