The Government of the Canary Islands has just approved the declaration of regional interest for the water supply and sanitation works on the island of La Graciosa, which definitively unblocks the drafting and execution of both projects, which have been paralyzed since 2017.
Following the approval of the transitional substantive regulations and the suspension of planning, agreed last December, the Ministry of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion and Water has a free hand and legal certainty to directly assume the works.
The declaration of regional interest for the water supply and sanitation of La Graciosa is protected by the Canary Islands Water Law, and its approval allows both projects to be definitively promoted, reducing the procedures for inter-administrative cooperation with the Teguise City Council and the Lanzarote Island Council.
The roadmap agreed by the Government of the Canary Islands with both institutions and the residents of La Graciosa contemplates the replacement of the underwater pipeline that supplies the island with drinking water, and the completion of the sanitation and commissioning of the treatment plant.
The Ministry of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion and Water has also assumed the financing of the cleaning and maintenance of cesspools on the island, which will be carried out periodically until the sanitation is completed. In the past year, 200,000 euros were allocated to subsidize this service, while the Budgets of the Autonomous Community contemplate an item of 400,000 euros in the current year.
On December 9, the Governing Council suspended the island and municipal planning in the affected area in La Graciosa, and the transitional substantive regulations were approved that will give urban viability to the execution of both projects, which are part of the island hydrological planning of the third cycle, prepared by the Government of the Canary Islands and approved in July 2024.
The drafting of the water supply project has already been completed, so in a few months the work of replacing the old underwater pipeline that supplies the island, which has registered some 700 breakdowns in the last four years, could begin. As for sanitation and purification, its drafting will begin in the coming weeks with the aim of being approved and its execution tendered before the end of 2025.
