The Wastewater Treatment Plant (EDAR) it will recover functioning with full treatment at the end of June, if there are no mishaps. This was announced today by the president of the Girona County Council and the Costa Brava Girona Water Consortium, Michael Noguer; the acting manager of the Water Consortium, Lluís Sala, and the mayoress of Palamós and third vice-president of the Provincial Council of Girona, Maria Puig, in a press conference in which they explained the state of the repair works for the sanitation facilities of the entity affected by storm Harry at the end of January.
The exceptional rains throughout the Girona regions caused breakdowns in eleven sanitation systems on the Costa Brava, although the most important one was at the Palamós sewage treatment plant, key infrastructure of the Baix Empordà sanitation system. The overflow of the Aubí stream in the southern part caused the flooding of the installation and serious damage that was described as a "total disaster".
Recovery work began immediately, with sludge removal, the cleaning of the facility and the detailed assessment of the damage. This assessment made it possible to identify the need to replace or repair a large number of essential equipment, especially electrical installations, transformers, bomb motors, control equipment, treatment systems and internal infrastructures.
Once the technical report of the damage has been completed, the Water Consortium requested an extraordinary allocation of funds from the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) per a global import of 3,96 millions of euros, of which 3,6 million have been exclusively for the reconstruction of the Palamós WWTP. The ACA approved this funding on 17 of February i, nine days later, emergency contracts have already been awarded to the respective companies operating the service to repair the damage.
Once all the affected equipment has been cleaned and removed, the works have focused on the reconstruction of the electrical system, essential for the operation of the treatment plant, as well as in the evaluation of the state of the electromechanical equipment, to be able to order the necessary repairs and orders.
The complexity of the damage and the fact that many pieces of equipment are custom-made to order mean that recovery has required several months. until now, the installation has worked through two generator sets, one for the pretreatment and one for the control building, which has allowed the pre-treatment of waste water to be carried out, enable work areas and restore communications with the system's pumping stations.
During the second half of this May, it is planned to restore the electricity supply to the plant and put the primary decanters into service, with which the polluting load discharged will be reduced by approximately one 40 % with respect to that of the entrance. From here on, and in an additional period of one month (at the end of June), the WWTP would already work with complete treatment, so that the pollutant load would be reduced by the order of a 95 %, measured as matter in suspension.
the president, Michael Noguer, has highlighted: "Storm Harry did a lot of damage to our sanitation systems and, during these months, we dedicated ourselves to work, without rest, to get back to normal as soon as possible. And in Palamós, we managed to get an installation that was completely collapsed to be able to function again in the vicinity of Sant Joan, if nothing unexpected happens. We could say we've done it again".
"We are grateful to the Consorci d'Aigües and the ACA for the speed in the repair and financing of the plant. We celebrate that, despite having had to pour water without all the necessary treatment until now, the quality controls of the bathing waters are going well», emphasized the mayoress of Palamós, Maria Puig.
The underwater outfall and water quality controls
Included in the operating contract for the Water Consortium's sanitation systems, in a scheduled way and with a frequency of twice a year, the revisions of the state of the submarine emissary located in the area of the beach of Castell (Palamós) i from the quality of the water of the sea to the vertical of the emissari.
In this sense, he 18 in February the sampling was carried out for the evaluation of the sea water, which presented a "good" level of physicochemical quality and a "very good" level of biological quality.
In the review of the state of the emissary, he 21 March 31, a break was detected a 634 meters from the coast and 23 meters deep. Three days later, a complementary emergency declaration was made to repair it, which is expected to be completed at the beginning of June.
"Denmark has been commissioned to build a new flange, more reinforced, which must arrive at the end of this month and, once it's here, specialized divers will have to place it. It is not an easy task because the piece weighs almost half a ton and the installation must be accompanied by good weather conditions», explained the acting manager, Lluís Sala.
About that, have been carried out, periodically, controls of the quality of bathing waters on the coast line: two by the Water Consortium (he 23 of March and 13 April 4) and one by the ACA (he 29 April 4). The result of all these controls has been of the "excellent" category. During this month of May, this quality control of the bathing waters will be done on a weekly basis, with tasks that will be shared between the ACA and the Water Consortium itself.
in parallel, the Water Consortium is working on a study of alternatives for the future location of a new WWTP, as part of a project to expand and modernize the infrastructure.
In the coming months, will be shared with the municipalities involved (Palamós, Calonge and Sant Antoni, Mont-ras, Vall-llobrega and Palafrugell) and will be subject to the corresponding approval processes of the ACA.
