In the summer of 1995, with the implementation of the “drought law” that set the last rain shower of the day at 8 p.m., the authorities measured the water in the tanks that supplied Seville to ration card standards. Every month they were expanding … Reductions to give more life to dam water. At the end of a hot August, many politicians and technicians showed their despair over the plan to evacuate the city, seeing the moment when water would no longer be available to drink closer than ever.
Fortunately, the event was followed by a massive flood that filled the dams and restored hope to the people. But the memory of that incident resonated with some government officials such as Soledad Becerril, who preferred to mortgage Seville’s money to build Millonares before talking about another evacuation plan. From the memory of nightly sales and daily filling of bathtubs and buckets for household emergencies, the careers of many children were also born who today are long-time professionals developing major projects from their city to provide solutions to drought in remote areas of the world.
Lantania, Cox, Azvi, Aisha, Genova. All of them originally from Seville or based in the city, they are strengthening the water infrastructure of the almost desert country. The largest desalination plants, the longest pipelines, and the most precise purification plants bear his signature. Cutting-edge technology to reverse drought, sometimes in the middle of the desert or 3,000 kilometers away from the office where they design the infrastructure, however, there is no place for any of these projects on their land.
Ramiro Angulo, general manager of Aguas de la Junta, bitterly admitted as much last Wednesday during an ABC R&D special in Andalusia. The politician was at a loss for words to share his frustration: “Everything turns inside me when I see our companies building water desalination plants that we cannot even dream of here,” he said. Not because of a lack of budget or talent, but because of a lack of agreement between departments on water management. A resource essential to life that is still used as a political weapon.
Unfortunately, water has an ideology. Conservatives for dams, progressives for desalination plants. They made us believe that in that fight, the thirsty land continues to lose opportunities and lives in fear of an evacuation plan like the one put in place in 1995 because at some point there will be no water to drink. Instead of using technology, we will once again resort to emergency measures such as bringing water in ships at the price of gold or launching an iceberg at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.