Require support for desalination and reuse projects in other countries

After two years of preparation, the VIII Congress of the Spanish Association of desalination and reuse (AEDyR) was held from September 28 to October 1. On this occasion, the Auditorium and AXA conventions of Barcelona centre was the venue chosen for the staging of this biannual event, considered central Act of an organization with more than 300 partners and nearly 80 companies. A Congress which included 50% more papers in respect of the previous call-- as said Miguel Ángel Sanz, Vice President of the entity, during the opening of the 28th and divided into five sessions: a plenary after the openingtwo on the rest on water reuse and desalination. A series of technical visits to various plants were also organized. For example, on 30 September visited the water-treatment of Abrera, especially the new plant of EDR; the water-treatment of Sant Joan Despí, with its new expansion of OI and the water of the sea of Barcelona-Llobregat desalination plant. Finally, on 1 October took place a visit to the desalination plant of Tordera. A throughput that were scheduled so that the audience discovered that Barcelona has the privilege of having all the technology in the field of desalination and reuse of water, according to the Vice-President of the AEDyR.

Miguel Ángel Sanz and Manuel Rubio Visiers, Vice President and President of the AEDyR respectively, agreed to evaluate the internationalisation of the sector as one of the challenges of the contest. In this sense, the 29th was carried out an international meeting that was also on the reuse of water. Thus, held the Roundtable 'Australian Experiences' in which involved a large Australian institutional representation that described his experience in desalination and water reuse. "We want to provide us an image of what is there to contrast with the cases we have had here." "We must bear in mind that much of our companies are working on Australia, by sharing knowledge with them," said Miguel Angel Sanz. For its part, Manuel Rubio, also called for the expansion of the sector outside national territory: "everything that has been developed in Spain in the last 30 years, can sell out." "We are very advanced in technology of desalination and water reuse, and here there is not enough food," he said. Also the owner of the Association made special reference to reuse, as technology which technically gives more than it. "I hope the Spanish Association of desalination and reuse, to end by calling for reuse and desalination that we have come a long way in the water cycle and, in my opinion, these technologies for reuse are that are giving more than it".

For its part, Manuel Hernández i Carreras, director of the Catalan Agència of l'Aigua, has drawn up four strokes on the water of the Generalitat de Catalunya policy defined and justified in the District of Catalunya River Basin Management Planas well as its programme of action recently adopted by the Board of Directors of the Agency, at the meeting held on 16 September. As a result, called the timing of this Congress 'timely' because that allowed to publicize the contents of such planning. "Our water policy is based on the requirements of the implementation of the water framework directive and gives priority to the quality of the water, the guarantee of supply and environmental restoration under criteria of efficiency, savings, participation, and recovery of costs of the lifecycle"He summed up. In his view, the rationality in the use of water through the integrated management of resources was based on a sum of solutions, from the decontamination of acuiíeros, reuse of reclaimed water, desonización, as well as interconnection of national networks and the demand to ensure the supply and availability of uses of water throughout the community. "Today we have 122 hm³ additional that we had not in the period 2007-2008 when it refused or cuestinaba the contribution of 122 hm³ of water from the basin of the Ebro to the basins of Catalonia", stressed. He also referred to the desalination plant of the Llobregat as one of the solutions to be added to the effects of the adoption of measures of water saving in Catalonia. "In the past seven years, household and urban use remains with percentages of savings between 8 and 9% on average, while the population has grown at more than 771,000 inhabitants". Water savings that considered "outstanding asset of the Catalan society" because the small gestures and good daily habits are as important as large investments in infrastructure. In addition to saving water and desalination, the Catalan model bet firmly by the optimization of conventional resources and the provision of new enabling obtained water technology, guaranteed and further from the already regenerated. Finally, he recalled facilities in implementation of tertiary treatment as cleaners of Vila-Seca and Salou, whose double objective is the recovery of conventional resources for urban supply and water reuse regenerated for industrial use in the petrochemical industrial estate major Mediterranean. In summary, the works executed in catalunya and scheduled will ensure, in the medium term, the availability of water to the main supply systems providing resources for the desalination of the reuse of reclaimed water, recovery of aquifers and the improvement of the efficient management of the use of resources. A total of 389 hm³ per year which will be incorporated to agricultural, industrial, urban uses and recharge of aquifers, allowing at the same time the introduction of environmental flows and an important fact in the is: the gradual reduction of the contribution of the Ter River to the metropolitan area of Barcelona.