With rainfall increasingly scarce, irrigating crops can be a major challenge, but farmers in southeastern Spain have long relied on recycled wastewater in a model that is winning attention abroad.
“Here the water is still dirty ... but by the end, it will be crystal clear and bacteria-free,” said Carlos Lardin, operations manager at Esamur, the public body overseeing wastewater management in the Murcia region.
At his feet, brownish water bubbled in a desilting tank, the first step before being sifted, filtered and then biologically treated to give it “a second life,” the 45-year-old engineer said.
Photo: AFP
Twenty-three years ago, Murcia — an arid region with chronic water shortages that claims to be the EU’s leading producer of fruit and vegetables — set itself a huge challenge of reusing wastewater to irrigate its crops.
To that end, the region built a network of 100 treatment plants that process and disinfect water from the sewage system so it can be reused on the fields.
This treatment, which involves sand filters and ultraviolet rays, ensures that the water “is not contaminated” and does not transfer bacteria “such as E coli” to the fruit and vegetables, Lardin said.
As a result, about 98 percent of the region’s wastewater is reused today, compared with an average of 9 percent across Spain and 5 percent across the EU, government data show.
It is an important contribution given that the central government has recently restricted Murcia’s huge water transfers from the Tagus River, whose levels have been dropping dangerously.
Esamur said that 15 percent of the region’s irrigation needs are met by recycled wastewater.
It is not enough to cover the need, but it is still important, said Feliciano Guillen, head of the Ceuti irrigation organization, which allocates water resources among farmers in northeastern Murcia.
Farmer Jose Penalver, who owns 10 hectares of land in the hills above Campos del Rio, agreed.
“Whatever [water] can be collected is good wherever it comes from as long as it’s put to good use,” the 52-year-old apricot grower said.
In his fields, an automated drip-irrigation system lets him limit water use to what is strictly necessary, in this case, two hours per day.
“Without this [recycled] water, everything here would dry up,” he said. “Every drop counts.”
Evidence of this growing interest has been seen in Murcia, where in the past few months, “many foreign delegations have come to see our facilities,” Lardin said, pointing to visitors from as far afield as Argentina and Bolivia.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS