The water reduction in recent months has been around 35%. To stop it immediately, and it has already started in Sciacca, Aica is relying on truck drivers, also having them regularised. They are registered and there is a double effect: on the one hand the truck driver gets regularized, on the other the citizen is certain that the water brought from Aica is good and controlled. The mayors of Agrigento, Favara and Licata were also present at this morning’s meeting. “The water networks are there and remain – explained the prefect – but we, somehow, have to bring that reduced part. Where do we get it from? From additional resources and that water cannot be put into the network”.
Summit in the prefecture on the water emergency: tankers for everyone and 6 million euros available for the search for new sources
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Rebuild the watermaker
The tankers on the one hand, to draw on those alternative sources that are not connected, nor can they be connected, to the main water network. And then the reconstruction of Porto Empedocle watermaker, thanks to cohesion funds from the national government. “Fortunately, all the pipes are still there, but the heart has been removed – explained the prefect of Agrigento, Filippo Romano, during the press conference -. Today’s watermaker is not the one of yesterday. There are two ways to obtain desalinated water. One is by boiling, coil, cooling and distilled water comes out to which salts must be added because distilled water is not drinkable and therefore there is a very high cost: energy , salts and pumping. Only the cost of pumping remains if you switch to the latest generation watermakers, I take it for granted that they will be those, but I know from the Region that the idea is to use the membrane watermakers they leave already part of the salts present in the sea. And this leads to an increase in costs, but a more reasonable one”. The prefect made the comparison with the waste plants that citizens do not want to be built and the cost of the Tari: “There is resistance both in politics and in the associations for waste plants. They are choices and we must take responsibility for faced with choices. If we want water even when there is drought, we must find it where it is possible. And the watermakers have their costs – underlined the highest government authority -. water from the watermaker will not be used. The watermaker is needed in times of crisis, but this is up to politics and not the prefect or the technicians present here – Romano clarified – to spread the cost over the years they have to come out somewhere.”
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The new water sources to draw from
The new sources that we intend to draw on – indicated in the emergency decree, signed by the head of the Civil Protection department – can only be reached by tankers. The 35% of water that is missing, Aica and the municipalities will try to compensate for it thanks to these sources and home delivery. Here is what we are talking about in detail: new spring in Cammarata, i.e. strengthening of the Chirumbo Tricca 1 and 2 spring group (167,300 euros will be needed); construction of a new well, adjacent to the Grattavole well, of which it will be twin in Sciacca (cost 602,400 euros); revamping of wells in Ribera, i.e. reactivation of two municipal wells near the Favara di Burgio pipeline in the Castello district (80 thousand euros); same thing in San Giovanni Gemini, i.e. reactivation of 3 municipal wells in the Edera-Santa Lucia district; bypass and interconnections between networks in San Giovanni Gemini. In this case the intervention involves the construction of a connecting pipeline that allows interconnection between the two sides of the “Serracanale” rural aqueduct, powered by its own sources (wells) and Ficuzza powered by a water supply coming from the Fanaco reservoir and delivery by Siciliacque to the Bosco divider near the town of Mussomeli, so as to be able to supply water from its own sources to the Ficuzza side, which is the most deficient, thus freeing up resources from the Fanaco reservoir which can be used for drinking water . Estimated expenditure in this case of 150 thousand euros. And also revamping of the Grattavole 4 well, creation of a pipeline connecting to the well field already managed by Aica – cost of 400 thousand euros – in Sciacca.
Naturally, interventions of this identical kind are also planned in the provinces immediately adjacent to Agrigento. New well next to the Callini – 289,250 euros spent – in Caltabellotta; but also to the “E” well of Favara di Burgio for a cost of 189,150 euros. These are new resources of 30 and 50 l/s respectively. In the first case it involves recovering a well hit by a landslide in 2023 and it is a well interconnected with the Favara di Burgi system, therefore it represents a resource integration in favor of the Agrigento area. In the second case, thanks to hydrogeological studies, it was possible to evaluate that the Favara di Burgio aquifer still has a potential for exploitation. The intervention involves the drilling of a new well to be included in the Fav system to be conveyed to the Agigento hub and through other interventions to send the resource towards the Gela-Aragona aqueduct.
Water that cannot be used for human purposes will be used for irrigation
“Where we found springs that have a sulphate limit higher than that imposed by law, we studied with the health authorities the possibility of dilution. Water that cannot be used for human use will be used for irrigation purposes – explained the prefect Filippo Romano – Enel has verbally offered us the possibility of using the water from the Porto Empedocle watermaker, the only watermaker we have. It is water that by law is not drinkable, but in reality it appears to be usable, it is not distilled, but it is usable. That water contains salts and we will have it evaluated periodically by the Asp.
In the short to medium term we will overcome the difficulties regarding the agricultural issue, which concerns the Northern area. We will close – explained the prefect – the withdrawal of the turbine from the pumping station on the Castello dam and transfer all the water to the Gammauta dam for agriculture. Similar solutions for Bivona which for 40 years was able to irrigate the fishing fields for free, today is no longer possible and we need to meet the needs of the farmers and the fact that the water must be paid for”.
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