El Fraile is suffering from a water shortage: a solution to the problem is promised in a few weeks.
For years, the residents of El Fraile have been suffering from water shortages, waiting for the completion of repairs to the old water pipe and promises from officials to improve the situation.
Imagine not being able to bathe your children at the beach because there's nothing to wash them with at home. You have to remember how it used to be: taking a basin and wiping yourself with a sponge, and then washing clothes in it. The water after bathing is used for washing the floor. You buy pumps to somehow use the weak stream from the tap in the kitchen, risking breaking the washing machine or boiler due to low pressure. And some people bathe like aristocrats – with eight-liter bottles of drinking water...
This is how people live in El Fraile, adapting to the heat and water shortages that have been going on for a whole year.
In the Arona area, the situation is so tense that people have created a residents' association and are collecting signatures to force the city council to do something. After three rallies, a pile of appeals to the mayor, and official requests, officials say one thing: there will be no normal water supply for at least another week.
Because of this, more than a hundred residents came to a meeting with the Councilor for Ecology, Clara Pérez, and a representative of the water utility Canaragua, Carlos Yuste, to find out what was happening.
Pérez explained that the main pipe that supplies water to the area is about 50 years old. "It worked fine until the pandemic, but then water consumption increased, and the pipe started breaking down constantly," she says.
The replacement of the pipe has been promised for a long time, but it runs through a ravine that is difficult to access, and it depends on the Island Council for Water Resources. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a project with land acquisition and route changes.
After years of red tape, the council finally made an "exception" for the work to begin. The tender was approved with a budget of 700,000 euros, the money came from mainland Spain, and work started in June.
"The situation will improve, and there will definitely be water," Pérez assured.
Yuste added that this is an emergency repair of 3.3 kilometers of pipe, not five, as originally planned, because this is the most problematic section. The first section, 1,100 meters long, is almost finished and will soon be put into operation.
The second section is "more difficult due to vegetation and narrowness," but they plan to cover another 200-300 meters in a few weeks.
These works cause accidents, so the water is sometimes completely turned off, and then gradually restored to avoid damaging the internal network.
Regarding the delivery of water by tankers, Yuste reminded that each truck carries only 8 cubic meters, which is not enough for the entire population.
At the meeting, people asked direct questions. "I haven't had water in my bathroom for three weeks," said one resident. Another added that for years they had been accused of having faulty plumbing.
Regarding discounts on utility bills, Pérez did not give specific dates and criticized the "political circus" around this topic: "The only noise I want to hear is the noise of construction equipment."
She also warned that "there will still be outages" while the work is in progress, but assured that social services will "help the most affected families" and collect contacts for priority assistance.