Alberto Ferreras| Zamora (EFE).- The 8,500 residents of Toro (Zamora) have gotten used to living without drinking water in their homes, a problem they have suffered for three months and which they face “with a lot of patience”, although their mayor, Tomás del Bien , has warned that this situation can occur in many other populations due to contamination and overexploitation of aquifers.
Del Bien has used reports from the environmental group Greenpeace to warn that more than 70 percent of Castilla y León’s groundwater is contaminated, and that the Los Arenales aquifer, from which Toro is supplied and is one of the larger as it extends through the provinces of Segovia, Ávila, Valladolid and Zamora, it is 187 percent overexploited.
It has been attributed to this that the arsenic levels of the Toro water are above those allowed since December 21 (they were also previously for three days), without the situation showing signs of an imminent solution and working against the clock in a provisional water treatment plant that can be used within two months and, in the medium term, in a direct intake from the Duero river shared with other municipalities.
In this case, the fault has been arsenic but in other towns it is nitrates or fluorine, he added a day before the celebration of World Water Day, instituted in 1993 by the United Nations.
Whether for one reason or another, the lack of potability of water from the supply network is increasingly frequent in municipalities that capture it from the subsoil, for which reason Del Bien has demanded that the Government of Spain and the Junta de Castilla y León look for viable long-term solutions.
Without drinking water but the receipt arrives the same
While they arrive, the inhabitants of the third largest municipality in the province of Zamora face the situation with resignation, although many of the residents of Toro coincide in criticizing that despite the fact that the tap water is not drinkable, one of the water receipts continues to arrive more expensive.
This criticism has been made out loud to the EFE microphones by Javier García from Toros, who has assured that before he paid between 33 and 34 euros in the bimonthly water bill and now the same.
Like many others, this neighbor chooses to use the bottled water that he fills in one of the seven portable water treatment plants installed in the city as fountains for cooking, and the bottled water he buys at the supermarket for direct consumption.
This hustle and bustle of carafes is especially suffered by catering establishments and some companies in the thriving food industry of this municipality of Zamora, cradle of the Denomination of Origin of Vino de Toro.
In bars, with one eye on the coffee pot
The waiter at one of the bars in the Plaza Mayor, Iñaki Blanco, explained that he changes the 25-litre carafe that they use to supply water to the coffee maker almost every day and that he must be careful that it does not empty completely, since if air enters instead of water, the machine with which they make the coffees can break down.
In addition, in their hotel establishment they have resorted to liter and a half bottles of bottled water to serve it to those who, due to ignorance or not wanting to spend on a bottle, ask for a glass of tap water.
Among the most affected businesses, according to a study by the CEOE de Toro business association, are bakeries, although in one of the most traditional, with 102 years of history, they have overcome the problem because they have their own water well and there the Periodic analyzes rule out the problem of arsenic in the supply network.
The person in charge of that bakery, Goya Escudero, has pointed out that, although they consume “a lot of water” to make bread and sweets in their establishment, they have “solved the problem” by resorting to jugs and the well from which they are supplied.
The rest of the residents of the municipality must resign themselves and trust in a more or less quick solution and that at least the situation does not cause them financial distress, when the City Council announces that it will set up a game of 30,000 euros to subsidize the purchase of bottled water. EFE