The General Board of the Island Water Council is debating its final approval this Tuesday after the rejection of the only two objections presented

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The Lanzarote Water Consortium has already deposited in its bank accounts two subsidies granted by the Government of the Canary Islands, charged to the general budgets of the Autonomous Community for the year 2024, for an amount of 7 million euros to deal with the water emergency .

The General Board of the Lanzarote Island Water Council meets this Tuesday at 10:00 am in the plenary hall of the Lanzarote Island Council to discuss the proposal for final approval of the declaration of water emergency in Lanzarote and La Graciosa, after the Council’s legal services rejected the only two objections to the declaration submitted by the Haría City Council and Ecologists in Action.

“We are already seeing the first fruits of the declaration of a water emergency by being able to benefit from a range of subsidies from the Government of the Canary Islands to reverse the water crisis that the island is experiencing,” says the president of the Cabildo de Lanzarote and president of the Water Consortium, Oswaldo Betancort.

“The efforts made over the last year by the workers of the Water Consortium and the Island Council, together with the trust placed in us by the 24 members of the General Board of the Island Council who voted in favour of the water emergency, have soon borne fruit with the granting of the subsidy to finance these two actions aimed at increasing water production in the short term by more than 20 percent, while the rest of the measures are developed that will lead us to recover 100% of the production planned for the Díaz Rijo Power Plant. We are working to reverse the situation we found ourselves in at the beginning of the legislature before the end of this year,” added the president.

The 7 million euros granted by the Department of Territorial Policy, Territorial Cohesion and Water of the Government of the Canary Islands, charged to the general budget of the Autonomous Community for 2024, have been possible because the processing of the water emergency by the Lanzarote Island Water Council has begun and the assessment report of both projects has been completed by the Lanzarote Water Consortium.

Following the agreement adopted by the General Assembly of the Lanzarote Water Consortium on November 11, 2024, by which it was approved to request the Lanzarote Island Water Council to process the Emergency declaration procedure, the General Directorate of Waters of the Government of the Canary Islands was interested in granting a subsidy for the supply of reverse osmosis membranes for an amount of 2 million euros, with the Concession Order being issued by the Ministry on December 26.

On November 29, the General Meeting of the Lanzarote Island Water Council approved, with 24 votes in favor, 2 abstentions and 3 votes against, to initially declare a water emergency situation on the islands of Lanzarote and La Graciosa for a period of 6 months.

This agreement for the initial approval of the declaration of emergency supported the request made by Oswaldo Bentancor, as president of the Lanzarote Water Consortium, for the subsidy of the project included in measure A.3. of the agreement of the Island Water Council, the recovery of the 10,000 m3/day frame of the Lanzarote III plant in the Díaz Rijo desalination plant; the Order for the Granting of the Subsidy was issued on December 31.

“The initial approval of the declaration of emergency has been decisive in accessing subsidies from the Government of the Canary Islands; in other words, the members of the Island Water Council who voted in favour on 29 November have already contributed to saving 7 million euros for the coffers of the island Administration. Tomorrow’s session, of definitive approval of the declaration of water emergency for the island of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, will contribute to opening new doors for the financing of other projects,” said the Councillor for Water of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and Vice-President of the Consortium, Domingo Cejas.