"A sudden scare". This is how the manager of Canal Gestión Lanzarote, Gerardo Díaz, has described the situation in which he found the island's water supply service this summer, given the losses in the network and the increase in tourism, which have caused the service to be cut off in dozens of locations and on multiple occasions. Díaz has acknowledged that the distribution networks are "bad", but he wanted to make it clear that the service's concessionaire was already aware of this. What the company was not counting on was that this summer the demand would be "beyond all expectations".
For this reason, Díaz has announced that one of the priorities of the new concessionaire will be to try to prevent leaks in the network and also fraud. To this end, among other measures, Canal Gestión Lanzarote will invest 13.7 million euros in 2014, more than one million of the initially planned for that year, out of a total of 54 million euros that will be invested from 2014 to 2018.
With these investments, among other objectives, Canal Gestión Lanzarote will try to ensure that next summer there are not so many supply interruptions on the island. "I guarantee that the situation will be better for sure than this year, but we have encountered things that we already expected and as we solve them we have discovered others. However, it will improve like from 1 to 10 next summer", Díaz has pointed out. "Hopefully everything will improve and that the water cuts in summer will become a thing of the past on the island", he pointed out, while expressing his confidence that all the necessary works can be carried out to try to reduce water interruptions in summer.
2,523 breakdowns and failures from June to September
And Canal Gestión Lanzarote has found multiple failures and breakdowns in the network. Specifically, from June 1, the day the company took over the service, to September 30, there have been 2,523 breakdowns and failures. That is, according to Gerardo Díaz, there are three failures per kilometer and year, which is between "seven and ten" times above the sector.
In addition, in this period from June to September, Red Eléctrica Española has cut off the electricity supply ten times, which has delayed water production by hours, and the concessionaire itself has stopped the service on 45 occasions to carry out maintenance on the desalination plant. These cuts were "inevitable", according to the manager.
For this reason, the company will undertake in a shorter period some investments that had been planned in a time of five years. For example, Díaz has explained that they will try to invest 12.7 million euros in the Punta de los Vientos and Janubio facilities in "the first two years". "Our commitment is that during the next 30 years we will cover the supply with a minimum quality standard. If for this the investments had to be higher than those we have committed to, they will have to be. The money will have to be put from the coffers of the public company Canal Gestión Lanzarote", he pointed out.
Fraud cases
The company's manager has also spoken about the cases of fraud detected in the network and for this and for the control of leaks, Canal Gestión Lanzarote will invest 258,890 euros in five years. "I dare not say that there is much fraud in Lanzarote, but we have detected many cases, which are not controlled. However, leaks are more important than fraud", he clarified. In this period, it will also invest 6.6 million in improvements to the measurement system, specifically, in changing the meters that are more than eight years old and that have become "obsolete".
As for the investments planned in the short term, the waterproofing of a tank in La Graciosa has already been undertaken because "it had large leaks". In addition, actions have been initiated in the tanks of the Granja del Cabildo, where only one of the ten tanks is working. Actions have also begun in the Maneje tanks, "the heart of the island's supply", and given the damage it has, such as "destroyed roofs", Canal Gestión has decided to "build new tanks".
The doubling of the Montaña Mina tank, the Las Breñas tank, is also planned, and the possibility of building a larger tank in the vicinity is being studied, as is the case with La Atalaya, the tank in the north of the island.
Works on distribution networks
Likewise, projects are being drawn up to start works before the end of the year on networks such as in the southern part of Arrecife, in San Bartolomé, La Villa and in La Vegueta, action is being studied in Las Breñas and Mácher, the drafting of a project for new pipelines in the impulsion from the Janubio desalination plant to the new storage tank in the southern area will begin, the project for channeling from the new storage tank in the southern area to Playa Blanca is being finalized, the connection and pumping groups in the general impulsion from the central area to Montaña Mina will be renovated and the impulsion of the regulating tank in the north will begin.
Likewise, during 2014 the cartography of the 2,500 kilometers of networks will be repaired, since "it seems that it does not correspond to reality", according to Gerardo Díaz.
