Water crisis: it´s official

It's official. There is a water crisis, the local government announced yesterday. Island reservoirs are only at 30 percent of their capacity while the water that some of the reservoirs does contain has a high salt content. Boffins at the local ministry for the environment state that the water tables in Llucmajor, Campos and Na Burguesa all have a high salt content. “We are facing one of the worst droughts of the last 100 years. We must start saving water,” according to the local minister for the Environment, Margalida Rossello. To cope with this problem the local government are urgently calling on the central administration in Madrid to supply the necessary funds to enlarge the water desalination plant in Palma. “Once this project is completed it will be able to supply an additional 7'300 litres of water a day,” she said. Apart from the desalination plant the Balearic government are also calling on Madrid to pay for other projects which will help overcome the drought. Already the local government has borrowed money so that new wells can be drilled. The search for water is continuing. The small amounts of rain which have fallen over the last month have done little to resolve the problem. Rossello said that the councils of Palma and Calvia, which are the two municipalities which most consume water, must think seriously about introducing water saving drives. The local government has been criticised that it acted too late in trying to resolve the crisis. It was the central government delegate Catalina Cirer who spoke to her superiors and asked them to provide funds to enlarge the desalination plant. Rossello had been quoted as saying that she didn't want to enlarge the plant because it consumed far too much electricity. There have already been plenty of reports in the British and German media about the water crisis. This has already had an affect on holiday bookings. One top British television show was planning to cancel their trip to Majorca because they were concerned about the water situation. Some travel agents in Britain have already warned potential Majorca tourists about the water crisis.