The Insular Water Council of Lanzarote has begun the cleaning, conditioning, and recovery works of the edge channels of the Maretas de Montaña Blanca, in the municipality of Tías, a unique hydraulic infrastructure built in the mid-last century to take advantage of and store rainwater.
The project has an award budget of 100,910.08 euros, financed entirely with own funds from the Insular Water Council of Lanzarote, and has been awarded to the company Transportes y Excavaciones Sccatmeca S.L. The estimated timeframe for the execution of the works is one month and three weeks.
The works will allow the recovery of approximately 730 meters of channeling excavated in the mountain, with an interior section of about 60 centimeters in width and a little more than one meter in height. Due to the characteristics of the terrain and with the aim of preserving the environment, practically all the work will be carried out manually and with small tools, accessing the channels directly and avoiding impact on the surrounding areas.
The action includes the adaptation of the access road, the removal of accumulated silt in the channels, the repair of specific breaks in their outer walls, the recovery of the surface finish and waterproofing, as well as the cleaning of the sand trap sumps and sweeping of the interior channel floor. The safety sign of the hydraulic facilities will also be replaced and the control booth will be repainted.
A unique work of Lanzarote's water culture
The Maretas de Montaña Blanca were built in the mid-20th century on the slopes of the mountain of the same name, in the municipality of Tías. The system was designed to capture rainwater through a network of channels excavated in the mountain and conduct it, after passing through settling and desanding systems, to two large reservoirs built inside Montaña Blanca.
The two reservoirs are approximately 54 meters long, 7 meters high, and 5 meters wide each and constitute one of the most unique examples of the solutions historically developed in Lanzarote to cope with water scarcity. The infrastructure was initially conceived to contribute to the supply of Arrecife, although during its operation the stored water eventually only reached Tías.
The arrival and generalization of desalination systems progressively caused their abandonment and, with it, significant deterioration. Due to its uniqueness, the Insular Water Council already undertook a first phase of recovery in 2022, which included cleaning, restoration, and waterproofing of the tanks and the interior channel located between the two desanding sumps, in addition to protecting access to the tanks.
The new intervention continues that first action and now focuses mainly on the exterior channels, thus completing the recovery and conservation of an infrastructure that constitutes an exceptional testimony to the history of water use in Lanzarote.
The president of the Cabildo and the Insular Water Council of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, highlights that "we are recovering a transcendental part of the history of water in Lanzarote and restoring the functionality of a unique infrastructure that can still play an important role in the proper channeling of rainwater."
"Lanzarote learned for centuries to make use of every drop of water, and the Maretas of Montaña Blanca are one of the best examples of that water culture that is part of our identity and is also one of the primary objectives of the declaration of the water emergency. We have the obligation to conserve this heritage, but also to make it useful and prevent the abandonment of these infrastructures from ending up causing problems of erosion and runoff," adds Betancort.
The Minister of Water of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Domingo Cejas, explains that "the priority is to ensure that the exterior channels once again fulfill the function for which they were built. Over the years, mud, stones, weeds, and other materials have accumulated until they are practically completely obstructed, so that rainwater currently flows down the hillside without proper channeling."
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