The Consorcio del Agua, with the support of all the island's town councils, has unanimously approved the initiation of the file to temporarily intervene the integrated water cycle service in Lanzarote and take it away from Canal Gestión, the subsidiary of Canal Isabel II of Madrid, which has managed the network since 2013.
The extraordinary assembly held this Monday has also approved the proposal to terminate the concession contract for the services of supply, sanitation and reuse of water in Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
The temporary intervention of the service has been approved as precautionary measure, while the file to resolve the contract with the concessionaire progresses, after negotiations to transfer the service to another company did not go ahead. Consorcio del Agua announced on April 6 that it had broken off negotiations with Canal Gestión after two consecutive three-month periods to carry out this action had expired.
On the morning of this Monday, La Voz made public the technical-administrative report, prepared by the managing director of the Lanzarote Water Consortium, which proposed intervening in the service after confirming the "serious disturbance" and "structural" nature of the service due to the existence of "frequent interruptions" of the supply, but also due to the situation of "maximum precariousness" of the main desalination plants of the island and of the wastewater treatment.
This decision has been adopted despite the fact that Canal Gestión announced at the end of last week that it would activate "with the maximum forcefulness", the appropriate legal channels to defend its interests, after learning about the extraordinary call for this assembly.
The Partido Popular, which is part of the island government formed together with Coalición Canaria, asked a few days ago that the temporary intervention of the service be left on the table and asked its government partner to "act with the utmost rigor, responsibility and legal certainty". The only mayor of the Partido Popular on the island, Yonathan de León, did not attend the extraordinary assembly on Monday morning, but Echedey Eugenio (Coalición Canaria), the deputy mayor of the city, did so in his place.
In this extraordinary assembly, it was also debated to replace the person responsible for the concession contract of the integrated water cycle services on the island, which went ahead with the abstention of the municipalities of San Bartolomé, Tías, Haría and Yaiza.
