The General Assembly of the Water Consortium approved, last Thursday, unanimously, the regulatory bases, under a non-competitive concurrence regime, for the acquisition of water tanks, construction and/or repair of cisterns for the storage of domestic water and for irrigation, both for individuals and entities in the primary sector.
The regulatory bases will be on public display for 30 days, during which interested parties may review the documentation and submit claims or suggestions. Once this period has ended and the applications have been verified, the proposal will be submitted for approval by the General Assembly of the Consortium, without the need for a new agreement if no objections are received.
The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and of the Water Consortium, Oswaldo Betancort, congratulated the Minister of Water, Domingo Cejas, and the entire multidisciplinary team of the Consortium for the launch of this subsidy and encouraged the citizens of Lanzarote and La Graciosa to "participate in the process of developing the bases, and, above all, to take advantage of an initiative framed in the water emergency, with which we not only seek to alleviate the deficiencies in the supply network, but also to revitalize a traditional heritage of water storage in order to achieve a more sustainable and efficient water cycle."
The initiative is part of the cross-cutting measures of the water emergency aimed at water conservation, which also include recommendations for responsible use in public buildings and restrictions on non-essential consumption in service areas, "such as those we have already implemented in the facilities dependent on the Cabildo," according to the Minister of Water, Domingo Cejas.
Cejas also recalls that "the Water Consortium has provided the town councils with a draft municipal ordinance, within these cross-cutting measures, which aims to limit public uses on beaches and cleaning. And in that sense, I want to congratulate the Town Councils of San Bartolomé and Teguise, which have already launched initiatives for savings in their respective municipalities."
Covers 70% of the investment or up to 1,400 euros
Eligible expenses include both the rehabilitation and installation of new rigid or flexible tanks, with a limit of up to 3 m3 per installation for rigid tanks (10 m3 in the case of community installations) and 30 m3 for flexible tanks.
It also covers the new construction of cisterns, ponds or tanks buried or semi-buried up to a maximum of 40 m3 of capacity; as well as the expenses derived from the repair or rehabilitation of infrastructures for water storage up to a maximum of 40 m3, including expenses for disinfection for domestic cisterns for domestic supply.
The subsidy will cover up to 70% of the investment, with differentiated maximum limits depending on the type of installation (for example, up to 140 euros/m3 for rigid tanks, drums), and a maximum amount of 1,400 euros per beneficiary.
This ambitious aid plan, which is materialized throughout an extensive document of 22 pages, also details the technical and legal criteria, the required documentation and all the phases of the procedure, from the presentation of applications to the justification and payment of the subsidy.