The orography of Tenerife and the permeability of its soil prevent the raft system from being effective. An example is the campitos dam, abandoned to its fate and practically empty since its construction.. The public company Balsas de Tenerife (Balten) has tried to collect part of the rainwater through intake and spillways in the ravines and redirect them for storage, however, “One thing is noise, another is nuts”, explains Carlos Soler.
“What runs through the ravines according to official data from the Insular Water Council is 15 cubic hectometres of water a year, compared to 160 that infiltrate”, therefore, “it is not worth shredding trying to catch the water from the ravines when we have it much easier under the ground“, Explain one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about the collection of groundwater in volcanic terrain.
Carlos Soler is a doctor and engineer of roads, channels and ports, he is a specialist in hydrogeology and for decades he directed the water extraction team of the Government of the Canary Islands. Soler has built some of the biggest rafts in Tenerife, “360 million cubic meters infiltrate this island every year, 160 are removed, we are removing less than half, why do we put desalination if we have underground water that is much cheaper and less polluting?“Soler wonders.
For the engineer, the answer is simple, behind are private interests and the business of desalination plants. “Canarian drilling technology to capture groundwater, which is unique in the world, is despised and we opted for desalination. The desalination plant is much more expensive and also works with electricity. To produce electricity you have to pollute and also, for every liter of desalinated water, a liter of brine is poured into the sea, which is polluting“, Soler sentence.
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In the Anaga water reserve there is enough water to supply the entire capital of Tenerife, according to Soler
“In the whole area of Anaga there is a series of dikes parallel to the summit that if they are drilled from the south to the north in a perpendicular way, a quantity of water could be obtained that would supply Santa Cruz or it would be shortly., and also, without affecting the springs “, explains Soler. This drilling would have to take place at elevation two hundred to capture the insular aquifer.”That water that we do not take is leaking into the sea, and in the sea it is for fish“, adds Soler.
The expert in drilling for the capture of hydraulic water was decisive in the so-called “water revolution” in La Gomera and, together with his team, discovered the Fuente Santa de La Palma, one of the best mineral-medicinal waters in Europe, coveted since the beginning of the 19th century by countless researchers. “Before the water in the Canary Islands was owned by the aguatenientes and now it belongs to the aguamangantes, a series of companies that act as intermediaries in water management “, says Carlos Soler.
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