Towns of Tarragona have exhausted water reserves and their inhabitants live with anguish the lack of rain
It is eight o’clock in the morning and the inhabitants of Forès (Conca de Barberà) breathe easy. Just arrived a tanker truck with 25,700 liters of water that should last them at least two days. The well that supplies the residents of this town it dried up in may and since then they depend on the water tanks to continue having a potable supply. Never seen in an area that knows too little rain. In the Baix Camp, a region much less accustomed to extreme drought, the neighbors are also in trouble. “If now that I am 20 years old we are like this, what will happen when I am 40? We talked about it with friends, we will have to leave town because of climate change“, assumes Emma Pajares, a resident of Botarell. Meanwhile, the farmers fear changes in a matter of months. Joan Llebaria’s olives are so dry they look like raisins. “We will lose this harvest and next year’s,” he assumes desperately.
Joseph Maria Bosch was born in Forès in 1939 and there he wants to die. At 83 years old, the lack of water is nothing new. “I took my first shower when I was 18 years old, when I left the town to work,” explains the man, who returned to Conca already retired. It is normal that, in these towns, water is scarce in summer. Before, the inhabitants bathed with basins and their houses are perfectly adapted to the lack of water, with cisterns that fill with rain from the roofs or the street. The few municipal gardens in the town have a water tank to take advantage of excess irrigation. And there is no municipal swimming pool. “Here we cannot afford this waste,” he continues. James Farresthe bailiff of Forès.
“That there is no water in summer is normal, but what is happening this time is extraordinary,” Bosch assumes. He takes off his cap and looks at the sky. “It’s not raining a bit,” Farrés replies. “Look, if the plants die, we give them a burial. The problem is in the people, in the fields, in the sources…“, continues Bosch. For more than 300 years, the Sant Miquel fountain, about 200 meters from the town center, filled the laundries where the women went to do their laundry. Today, not even a trickle of water comes out of the fountain. “I had to remove the 10 fish that I put in the winter so that they would eat the algae, otherwise they would already be dead,” the sheriff shows. The fountains are closed and the neighbors cannot turn on the water from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.. “I don’t care, if I think about myself I’m fine and at the end of everything, but I think of my grandchildren… What world have we left them, if it doesn’t rain? Where will they live?says the thoughtful octogenarian.
Tank trucks are not enough
As soon as Robert Esteve he has filled the water tanks with his tub and says goodbye to the inhabitants of Forès. “We can’t keep up,” she explains. The Madel transport company, led by the brothers Carles and Robert, is the only one in the area accredited to carry drinking water. Last year, in June and July, they made 80 supply trips. This 2022 they have 180, more than double. “And August is being much worse, we havedesperate mayors calling, asking for water every day“, continues Esteve. The cistern starts in the direction of Passanant i Belltall, a neighboring town with 5 nuclei where 170 people live. “This year the drought has worsened because we had a fire and they asked us to use the well, so we have run out of water three weeks earlier than usual“, explains the mayor, Magí Ninot. “We are used to a lack of water, we do not waste a drop, here it is like gold,” continues the mayor, who has also closed the municipal fountains and has imposed night water restrictions.
Garlic like ping-pong balls
The Belltall Garlic Association knows well what water scarcity means. It was born to continue planting the typical variety of this area, keeping the seed and not forgetting the roots. This weekend they set up a fair to sell this year’s garlic. “We have a problem, very small garlic has come out because it has barely rained, we will lose money”, says the president of the entity, Montse Sánchez. Garlic heads are like ping-pong balls, and olives are like raisins. “We will lose this year’s harvest, but especially next year’s, the few peasants who remain here are finished,” he laments. Joan Llaberiapresident of the association of irrigators of Riudecanyes (Baix Camp), the Siurana-Riudecanyes reservoir and the Escornalbou oil cooperative.
The worst drought in 60 years
The Riudecanyes reservoir is supplied by the ‘big brother’ of Siurana (Priorat), which redirects the Siurana River towards the coast so that the 3,000 irrigators in the area can irrigate the olive and hazelnut fields. “The flow of the river has dropped to 5 liters per second, when the normal was 20, 50 or 100,” says Llaveria. The irrigators have seen a 60% reduction in the use of water, which is being prioritized for oral consumption. “Normally we irrigated three hours a day, now we can only do it one. There was only one year worse than this, 1948, when the irrigators could not use any water,” he says while showing how the olive trees, orphans of water, release the fruit before of time “so as not to die of thirst”. “This year we will lose 80% of the harvest, but next year nothing will sprout, that is the worst”foresees the farmer, tired of seeing how the appellation of origin is losing producers because the business does not pay off.
13 hours without water for the private pools
In Botarell (Baix Camp) the mayor Luis Escoda he implores to be able to supply himself with the water of this swamp. The mine and the two wells that supply water to this nucleus have fallen by 75% of their usual capacity. “Now the vats have just arrived and we have half the tanks: 400 cubic meters to live“, explains the mayor. The most serious day, for the moment, was the weekend of July 30. “The main festival began and Many people came to his second home. The deposit was emptied in a single day because, we suspect, they filled the pools to the brim“Continues Escoda. They had to cut off the water for two hours at noon (from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.) and from four in the afternoon until seven o’clock, added to the usual cuts from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. “I cannot prohibit swimming pools, but I should be able to, all swimming pools must be closed and people must come to the municipal swimming pool”. Mayor’s Lament
“The pool was full, people didn’t have water to shower,” explains Emma Pajares, a 22-year-old who now works at the municipal pool bar. “This drought thing scares me a lot, because If now that I am 22 we are already like this, what will happen when I am 40? Sometimes we talk about it with friends, we’ll have to leave town because the drought will get worse with the climate crisis,” says the girl, who adds a fairly specific demand. “Look at that the ones we always catch first are the small towns, the most forgotten“.
Waiting for the transfer of the Ebro
The towns that depend on water tanks and are most exposed to drought are those that are not part of the Tarragona Water Consortium supply network, which is supplied by the Ebro. In the Conca de Barberà, eight towns that have been asking for years to join the network. “The tender has been delayed for a year, and we urgently need it so as not to suffer,” implores Ninot. Escoda has also requested it, but prays that the incorporation will not be delayed more than two years. Meanwhile, he has to pay for the vats that, today, allow the neighbors to subsist. The Generalitat only subsidizes 75% of the cost of transport, but not the price of water. “If we have to spend four or five weeks like this, we can’t pay for it. It will cost us 30,000 or 40,000 euros and we only have 10,000 for contingenciesEscoda sighs.