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"It's madness, my phone doesn’t stop ringing". This is how José Luis Claros, manager of Excavaciones y Materiales de Construcción El Quino, describes his job at the moment. He says that his company, which supplies water tankers for domestic and agricultural use, has been “flat out for a few weeks, without being able to attend to all the orders immediately”, adding, “right now we are telling people it will take us a week to get to them". Truck With Crane
With the extreme drought in Malaga province and the restrictions imposed by the Junta de Andalucía to reduce drinking water consumption by 20 per cent in the Axarquía and 10 per cent in the rest of the province, residents' associations are having to find ways to keep their swimming pools open and their gardens and green areas alive where possible. Under the 2021 drought decree issued by the regional government, filling and refilling swimming pools, street cleaning, watering gardens and golf courses or washing cars outside authorised establishments, and any other non-essential use, is prohibited.
The companies consulted by SUR that supply water tankers have said that they have not experienced anything like this in two decades. "They say that in the drought of 1994 and 1995 there was also a lot of demand for water trucks," says Jesús Arranz, who has had his company, Aquatrans 2000, for twenty years. His fleet of 25 vehicles can carry between ten and 25 cubic metres of water. "We are trying to get to people within 48 hours, but it is not always possible, this is the first time I have had the whole fleet working in summer", he points out.
Most of the calls the company, which is based in Malaga city, is getting are from the Axarquía, where the local councils are most vigilant in ensuring compliance with the restrictions. "We also have some livestock, but in the countryside there is hardly any demand, people have let their farms go to waste or have pruned their subtropical trees, such as avocados, they are losing several harvests, but they don’t have the money to pay ten euros per cubic metre; it is unaffordable," Arranz points out.
Resvi operates from Vélez-Málaga, with a fleet of 20 lorries and 26 workers, with capacities ranging from 12 to 30 cubic metres for each load. The prices range from 10 to 14 euros per cubic metre. "It depends a lot on the delivery, the distance and the hose that has to be used, but what we charge is the service, not the price of the water," says Manuel Gutiérrez, head of Resvi.
The company has been working in this sector for four years, and it is by far the one with the highest number of orders. "We are serving not only the province, but also in Cordoba, where there are several areas without drinking water," explains Gutiérrez, who points out that demand in agriculture and livestock is also high, especially in the Axarquía region. However, he says that last year it was even higher, and agrees with Jesús Arranz that this year many farmers have thrown in the towel and let their farms go to waste or have drastically pruned their trees.
The three companies consulted by SUR buy water from Emasa, Malaga city council’s public water company, both drinking and non-drinking water or treated water, which is suitable, for example, for swimming pools. The resource comes either from the El Atabal treatment plant or from their own wells managed by the Malaga Emasa.
Resvi had a well in Vélez-Málaga, but it has dried up. "With the severe drought we've had for months now, we can't get water from the well," says Gutiérrez.
The ban on the use of drinking water is forcing the closure of many communal swimming pools. This is generating conflicts, especially between tourists and local residents, according to Malaga’s association of property administrators, Colegio de Administradores de Fincas de Málaga. The association, which brings together more than a thousand professionals, has also pointed out that the gardeners are being made redundant because the work is literally drying up and because of "the unbearable cost" of using water trucks to keep gardens alive.
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