April 24, 2008
· Filed under news, politics · Tagged Cinta Castillo, Environment Minister, spain
And she’s a woman! Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has chosen Cinta Castillo to be his Enviroment MInister (Consejera de Medio Ambiente). ZP recently named a nine-women, eight-man cabinet and makes Spain unique in Europe in having more women than men in the cabinet. Bienvenida Sra. Castillo.
La Ministra is from Andalusia. She is a lawyer who finished her PhD “cum laudum”, writing about “New Technology and Law – implications upon Human Rights”. She has a blog.
April 18, 2008
· Filed under consumer choices, news, politics, recycling, water · Tagged barcelona, golf courses, spain, sustainable, valencia, water
After poor Spring rains, the autonomous region of Cataluyna faces drought, water rationing and a dry, dry summer. The capital city, Barcelona, is already on water rations, disallowing the filling of swimming pools and the watering of gardens. Municipal fountains have already been turned down.
The goverment of Cataluyna wants to divert water from the Segre river – a tributary of the Ebro -in order to serve Barcelona. But this is politically tricky because the Valencian government has been pushing for years to divert water from the Ebro to buttress it’s own failing water reserves. And of course Aragon, through which the Segre flows, opposes the canalisation of the Segre. The autonomous regions in Spain spend a lot of time disagreeing with one another.
The strangest thing about all this is that water in Spain is cheaper than almost anywhere else in Europe. and that per capita usage is second only to Italy. Populstatputs Spaniard’s annual per capita usage at 781 (not sure what the units are) and Italy at 986. Germans use 579 while Greece is at 523.
As the hydrology expert points out in the first article, the issue is not so much dryness as mis-management. Alicante province already has 15 golf courses and plans to build 33-48 more before 2020. The developers insist that they would be watered using recycled waste water, and are a huge boost to the economy. I am not sure that Alicante has the infrastructure to recycle waste water for use on golf courses.
I can only hope that tourists are developing a more sustainable approach to their holidays. The Spanish coast is terribly built-up and even the most callous sun-worshipper can see the devastating results of over-development. Golfers must insist that their courses are watered with recycled water and not illegal bore-hole water that should be destined for agriculture or just plain left where it is. If you can read in Spanish, there is a good article about water and golf courses in Valencia here.
A sustainable solution would be that the golf courses purify waste water and produce a little extra for consumption in their resorts. After all, Orange County (California) has broken the taboo about drinking recycled water and proven that it saves energy to boot.
