The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Water of the Government of the Canary Islands, Juan Ramón Hernández, stated this Tuesday in Parliament, in response to a question raised by the PP, that the works of the new desalination plant "Lanzarote V", located in the municipality of Arrecife, are expected to begin at the end of October. According to him, the project has been completed "recently" and is only pending its final technical approval. "It is an administrative act that is expected in the coming days," he explained.
Hernández recalled that on December 13, "the administrative contract between the Ministry of Public Works and Transport and the temporary union of companies (UTE) Desaladora Lanzarote V, participated by the entities Acciona Agua S.A.U and Acciona Infraestructuras S.A" was materialized. This contract included two tasks: the drafting of the project and the execution of the works contained therein, for a total amount of 6.8 million euros.
According to the Minister, it was on February 10 when the Arrecife City Council positively informed of the compatibility of the reference project with the General Plan of the municipality.
Likewise, the Minister has referred to the emergency situation of the island of Lanzarote, "derived from the deficit of desalinated water production", which was declared by the general board of the Island Council on April 14, 2011 and will extend until April 2013.
Juan Ramón Hernández has indicated that, as a consequence of this declaration, the General Directorate of Water of the Government of the Canary Islands presented a technical proposal to the Vice-Ministry of the Environment to submit to the consideration of the Governing Council the exclusion of the environmental impact assessment procedure of the aforementioned project, due to the exceptional circumstances that occur in Lanzarote. "The favorable report to this request arrived on June 9 of this year," he said.
"The next step was taken by the Government of the Canary Islands when it approved on the 6th of this month of September a decree by which this project is excluded from the procedure of environmental impact assessment, being subject, however, to compliance with certain environmental conditions that minimize or avoid the possible effects on the environment," the Minister stated.
Characteristics of the desalination plant
The new desalination plant, which is included in the agreement signed on December 9, 2008 with the Ministry of Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs for Actions in Water Matters in the Canary Islands, will join those that already exist in the Inalsa complex in Punta de Los Vientos (Lanzarote III and Lanzarote IV plants) and in Yaiza (Inalsa Sur-Janubio), which produce an average of 62,000 cubic meters of desalinated water per day.
The IDAM, with a nominal production capacity of 24,000 cubic meters per day, will increase the production capacity of desalinated water of the Inalsa complex. The Lanzarote V desalination plant has been conceived in a modular way in four lines, so that the number of lines can be expanded depending on the demand. However, in the first phase of the project, the installation of two lines with a total production of 12,000 cubic meters per day is contemplated.
According to the Government of the Canary Islands, the demand for desalinated water in Lanzarote in 2010 was 93,806 cubic meters per day, according to data provided by the Cabildo and the Institute of Statistics of the Canary Islands. The growth in demand, together with the lack of alternative water resources, "justifies the need to foresee a new desalination plant, expandable in the future in a modular way".
Deterioration of the plants
The Lanzarote III and Lanzarote IV desalination plants operate under normal conditions 90 percent of the time due to the increase in water demand. This activity is causing a high deterioration in them, reaching a decrease in their production of around 4,000-5,000 cubic meters per day. This is the situation that is intended to be alleviated with the construction of this new plant.
The action also includes the adaptation of the existing facilities in the complex to the current regulations on desalination. Therefore, apart from the desalination plant itself, the project includes the installation of a post-treatment system for 84,000 cubic meters of permeated water per day, as well as the conduction of the brine to the discharge point of the entire complex, and its discharge through an outfall. In this way, an efficient dilution of the brine in the sea is guaranteed.
The brine discharges from the Lanzarote III, IV and V desalination plants will be taken to a tank from which the submarine outfall will leave, which will discharge the brine to the sea by gravity. The post-treatment will be installed in an area of 1,000 square meters, located between the current Inalsa offices and the old ones, which will be conditioned and landscaped.
The new desalination plant will be housed in the building of the old Lanzarote II, currently in disuse. The seawater intake will be carried out through the wells that served the LZ-II, out of service, housed inside the intake building where the wells and pumping of the Lanzarote III are located.
