The LEP - Sí PODEMOS group in the Cabildo of Lanzarote denounces the "passivity of the government group in the face of the urgent need for the island to recover the communal ponds to face the water problem suffered by the island".
For the formation, this rehabilitation project "would not only be useful for improving the water supply to the fields but also as a work of conservation of the ancestral culture of water on the island. Lanzarote, one of the driest islands in the archipelago, has numerous ponds and cisterns that supplied water during the driest months and are currently in disuse.
According to Myriam Barros, spokesperson for the island group, an unlikely situation has been created. "If you tell someone from outside the island that we let thousands of liters of rainwater fall into the sea while we pay a private company to desalinate seawater for us, they won't believe it."
Podemos also recalls that continuing to desalinate water at the rate we do, "is not sustainable either economically or ecologically. Desalination plants generate brine discharges that end up in the sea and negatively affect the biodiversity of our coasts."
Barros wonders if "the Cabildo is aware of the burning of fuel involved in desalinating so much water, especially when we waste large amounts of free, sustainable and pure water that rains down on us from the sky and the negative impact it has on achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda."
For all this, the group believes it is "fundamental and urgent" that the Cabildo execute projects to recover ponds and put "all the necessary technical and human resources" so that Lanzarote can make use of the purest and most sustainable water that exists, such as rainwater.
Pond recovery projects of the General Directorate of Heritage
"Faced with the passivity of the Cabildo, the work of the General Directorate of Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands stands out, which has launched a historical recovery project of the old ponds of Teguise that aims to rescue the history of these hydraulic infrastructures to value them for future phases of this project with the restoration, consolidation and dissemination," they point out.
In the words of Nona Perera, general director of heritage and also part of Podemos in the Canary Islands, "the ultimate purpose of the General Directorate is to put into use the ponds that have been in force since aboriginal times, since it is aware of the enormous problem that the island suffers with this essential resource."
In the words of councilor Myriam Barros, "once again the Government of the Canary Islands comes to the rescue of the island in the face of the ineffectiveness of Dolores Corujo and her team."