The discovery of a "giant mareta" under the badlands of Timanfaya means taking "a giant step towards the hydraulic sustainability" of the island and would allow "to make the dream that Lanzarote has always had come true". This is how the engineer Carlos Soler described what the discovery of something that he has been arguing for years implies and that has now been endorsed by a report from the University of Barcelona, commissioned by the Podemos group in the Cabildo.
During his speech at the press conference offered this Thursday by the party, Soler explained that he has been presenting the theory of the existence of this aquifer to the different heads of the Government of the Canary Islands for 15 years, where he himself is a civil servant. And he also made this warning when he was asked for a report on the Island Hydrological Plan that the Cabildo has been processing for years, of which he warned that it had "errors and even typos". However, he did not even receive a response.
"They haven't even answered me. Nobody listened to me, nobody, until Podemos asked me for a report", said the engineer, when presenting the studies that now support his thesis. Studies that were commissioned by Podemos, which for the second report had the financial collaboration of the Cicar group (Cabrera Medina) and the César Manrique Foundation.
"A tribute" to an "island of hydraulic engineers"
"This is a kind of tribute to all the people who have been looking for water", Soler highlighted, who has referred to Lanzarote as an "island of hydraulic engineers", who throughout history "have taken water from the desert". Now, he says that this finding confirms that "that dream that Lanzarote had, they had it there, in Timanfaya".
In his speech, the engineer showed images of the terrain and also excerpts from texts that since 1402 spoke of springs in Lanzarote, which in its day "was called the granary of the Canary Islands". However, the volcanic eruptions in Timanfaya "not only wiped out eight towns", but also "the most fertile land on the island".
"This is what Timanfaya hides: its old ravine, carrying a flow of water", Carlos Soler explained. The engineer explained that in the past, rainwater went to the sea through that ravine, which was later buried by lava. This is what makes the displacement to the ocean that used to take place in a few hours, now take months. "In no badland are there ravines. The permeability is such that the water does not run", he pointed out, to explain that this causes rainwater to concentrate underground, in that "enormous natural cistern" that has allowed the geophysical study of the terrain to be detected.
"A large underground dam"
Carlos Soler explained that this aquifer is "as if it were a large dam", and what is needed now is to detail the quantity and quantity of water it contains, although "in the worst case scenario", he estimates that between 12 and 17 hm³ per year could be used, which is between 50 and 70% of the water currently supplied by Canal Gestión per year.
For this, it would be necessary to reinforce that "underground dam", because "one of the doubts is how much water infiltrates" into the lower layers. In this regard, he stressed that this intervention, like the studies that are still missing, could be carried out without altering this protected space. "Nobody would ever see anything. The point is not to touch Timanfaya", he stressed, also responding to how the water could then be extracted to take it to homes.
"Everything is being given to me by nature, the investment would be very cheap", he defended. Regarding the possible impact on the landscape, he pointed out that the works would be carried out "in the ditches of the roads that already exist", as they did in La Palma, when this same engineer led the studies that allowed them to find the Fuente Santa, putting an end to almost three centuries of unsuccessful searches.
The investment would be "very cheap" and the savings millionaire
In addition to pointing out that making this investment would be "very cheap", Soler also highlights the "enormous" benefit that would be obtained. And he argues that "even if only 15% of the flow that is demanded on the island was achieved, the savings would be more than 5 million euros per year". Something that should have a direct impact on the water bill paid by the people of Lanzarote, since extracting a cubic meter of water from that "natural cistern" would cost 10 cents, compared to the 2.4 euros that it is estimated to cost to produce a cubic meter of desalinated water.
But above all, the engineer has stressed that this would allow to end the "water-energy binomial" that conditions the island, by depending on desalination plants and therefore on oil, a polluting and limited fossil fuel. "All the water you consume is desalinated. What oil reserve do you have? A day and a half", Soler asked and answered.
In addition, he stressed that when we talk about the discovery of an aquifer, we are not only talking about a geological concept, but also an economic one. "There may be water, but if it is not profitable to extract it, it is not an aquifer", he explained.
The Canary Islands Government "will find out" through the media
Regarding the refusal that the Government of the Canary Islands has shown so far to investigate this thesis, despite the fact that Soler has been presenting it as an official of the Executive for a decade and a half, the engineer has pointed out that "he could invoke hidden problems" to find an explanation, although he has summarized it in that "they had the problem solved". "You were drinking, weren't you? Well, why?", he ironized, after underlining what this natural water reserve could mean in savings of electricity, oil and in the investment itself in desalination plants, as well as in the reduction that it should imply in the price that is charged for water on the island.
Regarding how the regional Executive will react now, he pointed out that "they still do not know" this finding, and that they will find out this Thursday through the media. For the moment, Podemos has already announced that it will take a motion to the Plenary of the Cabildo asking to urge the Canary Islands Government to carry out the last study that is missing.
And all this, after the report of the University of Barcelona has come to confirm Soler's thesis, which argued that no real studies had been done on the reality of water on the island and that it was based on false premises, such as talking about a concept of "transpiration" that occurs in other islands with vegetation, but not in Lanzarote; such as the existence of a single aquifer in the Corona, when this study has pointed out the existence of this other one in Timanfaya; or such as the calculation on the permeability of the soil in the badlands, where he has shown photographs reflecting the signs that show that the Timanfaya area is "completely permeable" to the passage of rainwater.