The price of water will rise next year for 90% of Catalan households, those located in the municipalities connected to the supply system of the Ter-Llobregat Supply Entity (ATL). The increase in the price of wholesale water supplied by this organization to town councils and concessionaire companies will be 33% (0.74 euros per m3 at 0.99 euros per m3), which does not mean that this percentage is the increase in the bill on the consumer. The direct impact of this increase affects only a part of it, which strictly involves the volume of water consumed, in such a way that this increase It should be limited to approximately one euro per person per month. But at the same time, It remains to be seen if additional costs will still be added to other items on the invoice, such as sanitation, the service of distribution companies or the fee that finances the construction of infrastructure by the Catalan Water Agency, immersed in a process of expanding the capacity of the Tordera desalination plant and the construction of new equipment in the area of Tarragona, the deployment of new regeneration facilities for an element that we can no longer do without even a drop and measures saving. The ACA also carries the weight of questionable management for years that should not have a direct impact on the user.
Behind the current price increase is an objectively demonstrable increase in costs. Attributable to inflation and also to the consequences of a drought that is not occasional given the horizon of a 20% reduction in Catalonia’s water resources due to climate change. This is one more charge to add to a concept that we will get used to, “climate inflation” that is, the increase in prices linked to the costs inherent to global warming.
ATL supplies drinking water obtained from the flows of the Ter, Llobregat and Cardener rivers, and the process to make it ready for consumption involves the use of chemicals and electricity supply, on which the increase in the CPI falls. But at the same time, the extreme drought has forced drastically increase the production of desalination plants, which initially have a cost per m3 notably higher than the purification of water collected from rivers and reservoirs, and even more with the increase in the price of the electrical energy that these facilities require for their operation. A reminder, by the way, that from the point of view of sustainability, having them is essential to weather situations like the current one but it cannot be the only solution and cannot replace strategies such as the reuse of regenerated water, a resource until now neglected and that will play a capital role, and the savings.
The increase in the price of water is in itself a mechanism to discourage excessive consumption, along with awareness campaigns and the improvement of distribution infrastructure, but like other basic supplies such as electricity, it must have compensation mechanisms to guarantee that access to it continues to be guaranteed as an essential right for lower-income households.