On Lanzarote, water is history, and the island is at a crucial point in that history, with the possibility of new operators and an increase in water tariffs.
An important meeting this month will decide the future of Lanzarote’s most vital resource, as the Lanzarote Water Consortium meets to discuss Canal Gestion’s proposal to transfer management of the island’s water to the service providers Aqualia and Sacyr.
The Water Consortium, composed of the island’s seven Mayors and the Cabildo President (who has an extra vote of President of the Consortium) controls the contracting and pricing of water supplies on Lanzarote, and will meet as the island faces up to another summer of huge water losses, cuts in supply and increasing worries about the ageing mains and sewage systems.
For residents in many rural areas of Lanzarote, water cuts have become a fact of life over the last few years, occurring on an average of one day out of every two in Tinajo and Haría last summer. Meanwhile, supplies to the tourist resorts and the capital, Arrecife, have been relatively unaffected.
This situation has angered farmers and created resentment that erupted onto the streets during the protests against mass tourism, where signs saying “Less Water for Swimming Pools, More For Potatoes” could be seen.
New equipment allowed a record volume of 31.8 million cubic metres of water to be produced last year, but only 14.2 million of those were metered by consumers, meaning that 17.63 million cubic metres of water have been lost, either to leaks in the mains system or theft.
Losses of 55.4% are a slight improvement on 2023, but wastage has been fluctuating around the 55% level for several years, with no evidence of improvement.
It’s not just water that is wasted, either – almost 100 Gigawatts of power were used to desalinate water at the island’s four main desalination plants- almost one eighth of the power produced by the island’s mainly oil-based power stations.
NEW OWNERSHIP
Last year, the Lanzarote Water Consortium announced that it was rescinding the contract with Canal Gestión Lanzarote, the Madrid-based company that has operated the utility since 2013. They accused Canal of breach of contractual terms to reduce water losses to 30%, and failure to invest over €20 million on improvement of infrastructure.
In response, Canal claimed that contractual terms allowing for tariff increases had been repeatedly ignored and also accused the Consortium of avoiding its responsibilities to maintain the network.
However, Canal Gestión has racked up huge losses on Lanzarote, and seems content to get out of the contract. It has proposed the transfer of the existing contract to two separate companies, Sacyr and Aqualia. Sacyr is a Madrid-based service provider, while Aqualia is a subsidiary of the Barcelonabased FCC, another service provider.
The Water Consortium has provisionally agreed to this proposal, although the Socialist Mayors of Tías, San Bartolomé and Haría, who favour a return to public ownership, and Yaiza’s Óscar Noda voted against it.
The new companies have specified that a tariff increase would have to be approved before they took on the responsibility, leading the Water Consortium to request approval for a price increase from the Canarian Pricing Commission – the first hike in water rates since 2011.
However, there is no guarantee that this will be authorised. In 2024, the Pricing Commission turned down an earlier request for tariff increases, precisely because of volume of wasted water, saying it was “the highest that we have ever encountered.” It called for rapid improvements, but water losses have barely changed since then.
OTHER PROBLEMS
And fresh water is not the only problem for the Consortium. Sewage leaks have also become a recurring problem, closing beaches in the resorts on several occasions. Bathing at Arrecife’s Playa del Reducto has been forbidden for the last four months after sewage was detected in the water.
The leaks are linked to an ageing sewage system and increased pressure on an island that is now more heavily populated at any time in its history. Taking residents and tourists into account, there is an average of a quarter of a million people on the island at any time.
The task of overhauling Lanzarote’s water system is an immense one, and although the Cabildo has guaranteed that supplies will not be interrupted, it is likely that any major improvements will take several years.
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