After years of freezing or slight oscillations, the the water bill will go up a 11.6% in the city of Barcelona. In the rest of the metropolitan municipalities supplied by Aigües de Barcelona, the rate will increase between 14% and 16%. In absolute numbers, as EL PERIÓDICO already announced, the increase will be equivalent to about €2.5 per month on average. This amount, therefore, in a bimonthly receipt, will cause the invoice to cost about five euros more than was usual until now. A average receipt of €42 will become around €47.
This calculation is based on what most users spend, it is an average. But depending on what is consumed and the fare bracket where each client is located, the rise can have a lesser or greater incidence regarding these approximate 5 euros on average.
Inflation and the expense of anti-drought infrastructure, the reasons for the increase
The Metropolitan Area proposes to expand its social rate to ensure water for vulnerable families
This increase will mean “the most important in recent years“, in the words of Martin Gullon, director of the Water Cycle of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB). But why does the price grow so much in 2024? The reality is that the part of the bill that increases is the part that corresponds to the water supply. And within this item, the purchase of water from ATL (Ens d’Abastament d’Aigües Ter-Llobregat) is included, which has increased your rate 30%. But not only ATL has made its services more expensive, since the treatments and distribution that Aigües de Barcelona is responsible for also increase, approximately 24%.
These factors, in their exact proportions, converge in a 25.8% increase in the concept “water supply”, which is an important part of the bill. Aigües de Barcelona claimed to increase this concept by 43%, but finally it increased by 25.8%. Then, in the rest of the bill, the water fee is paid, which in principle will not increase in 2024, and the sewage and waste rates.
The AMB has made the decision not to increase these taxes, which ends hiding the rise and leading to this final increase of 11.6% in Barcelona and 15% (approximately) in the other 22 cities. Sources close to the negotiation, to put the decision in context, give the example of Seville or Malagawhich have increased the price of water by more than 40%.
Aigües de Barcelona demanded to increase the concept of water supply by 43%, but finally it was raised by 25.8%, a record percentage
ATL, in its reasons, uses the fact that the desalination plants are producing at their maximum capacity, the rise in the price of energy, the worst state of water due to the drought that requires new treatments, the increase in CPI and reducing water consumption.
For its part, Aigües of Barcelonathat shares most of the arguments with ATL, add other reasons. The company defends that it spends more money on purifying the Sant Joan Despí, the plant that treats regenerated water. mixed with the flow of the Llobregat River, and that uses more chemical products to achieve adequate quality. In the list of reasons, they also include the increase of investments on their part to face the drought with new wells or pipe repairs.
Social bill
Directors of the metropolitan area agree that it was not sustainable to continue maintaining prices practically frozen. “The situation is different and we had to adapt to the circumstances of the droughts and the current economic reality,” he said. Gullon.
In recent years, Aigües de Barcelona had been asking for a rate increase that was not granted. This time, politicians have chosen to accept part of this demand. The increase will be definitively approved in the Metropolitan Council this Tuesday, where there are absolute majority of the PSCand later must be ratified to make it a reality, foreseeably in March 2024.
Gullon has also reported that the social ratein which the cost of water is reduced to vulnerable families, It will not only be maintained, but expanded. Work is already underway so that 100,000 homes (until now there were 60,000) can benefit from this discounted rate.
Critical sectors
The decision has angered ecological and environmentalist sectors, who consider that the increase could put access to water at risk. In a statement in which they describe the Government’s measures against drought as incoherent, they take the opportunity to warn of the impact that increases in the price of water will have on the entire Ter-Llobregat system, where they live. about six million people.
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The writing – signed by Aigua és vida, Greenpeace, Ecologistas en Acción, Grup en Defensa de l’Ebre or Grup en Defensa del Tear – notes that, with the increase, the number of households that dedicate more than 3% of their income to paying water bills could grow dangerously. Now they are the 9.7% of family units in the Barcelona metropolitan areaaccording to the latest analysis, although this figure could change.
Environmental entities consider that drought is “a pretext” used by Aigües de Barcelona to continue accumulating profits. In his view, regeneration is “a good option as long as public management of sanitation infrastructure is preserved.”