Our View: Water woes

AFTER the devastating rainfall which hit Almeria as well as parts of Costa Blanca and Murcia last week it seems that the weather simply isn’t being favourable to Spain at the moment.

Certainly, there have been repeated fears of drought conditions across parts of the country which is threatening the livelihood of a very large number of farmers, yet torrential rains are also likely to devastate crops.

There is internal wrangling, some of it clearly political, about the allegedly illegal incursions on protected areas of wetlands where farmers are being allowed to drain water and to some extent, we must recognise commerce may, on occasion, be stronger than conservation.

The Governments of Spain and Portugal are now jointly approaching Brussels asking for the adoption of measures to alleviate the effects of the drought on European agriculture and this of course means that they want more money and to be able to give more money to the agriculture section.

Water however doesn’t grow on trees although it does help trees to grow and neither does money although with €2.2 billion already allocated by the Spanish Government to drought relief it might appear that it does.

If aquifers are being raided and there isn’t enough rain, it seems that one option is to build more desalination plants in order to provide water, hopefully potable, but if not, at least suitable for agricultural purposes.

Another option is to ensure that sewage plants, many of which simply seem to exist to cause nasty smells around their vicinity are updated so that they can supply more water for agriculture and the ever-thirsty golf courses that so many people enjoy.