La Laguna Plant Upgrade to Irrigate 90 Hectares with Regenerated Water
A newly upgraded wastewater treatment plant in La Laguna will provide 90 hectares of farmland with fully regenerated water, boosting local agriculture and promoting sustainability.
Around 20 farmers from La Punta, Bajamar, Valle de Guerra, and Tejina will now be able to use all the treated water from the Punta del Hidalgo station. This water will irrigate about 90 hectares of land in the northeast of the island.
La Laguna City Council and Teidagua, a local company, have finished upgrading the wastewater treatment plant. The upgrade includes a new system that regenerates 100% of the treated water. The plant can now process more water, increasing its capacity from 850 to 1,200 cubic meters per day. This should be enough to meet the needs of the area for the next 20 years.
The new system for using treated wastewater for irrigation was announced yesterday by the mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, and the manager of Teidagua, Braulio Domínguez. They presented the project at a meeting with local farmers and council members Cristina Ledesma (Rural Development) and Ángel Chinea (Works, Infrastructure, Accessibility and Water).
Mayor Gutiérrez said that the upgraded station "will provide high-quality regenerated water, helping the overall water cycle. It's a huge benefit for local farmers to have access to this resource for their crops." He also praised the Teidagua team for creating "a plant that meets the demands of the 21st century."
Braulio Domínguez explained that the work has "transformed a standard treatment plant into a biofactory." He emphasized that the upgrade provides "a significant amount of water each day, helping to reduce the water shortage by dedicating previously unavailable regenerated water to agriculture."
Speaking for the farmers, Juan González de Mesa thanked everyone for achieving this goal "ahead of schedule." He noted that the upgraded plant is very important for the region's agriculture because "the water wells are being replenished thanks to this treated water, which allows us to develop sustainable agriculture." He also pointed out that the treated water has "very good conductivity levels for fruit production."
The improvements made over the past year allow the plant to fully regenerate treated water to a high standard. This is thanks to a modern filtration system that separates solids from liquids. In addition to this ultrafiltration system, a reverse osmosis process further reduces the water's salinity, from 1,200 to between 700 and 800, making it more suitable for irrigation.
The project also has environmental benefits. By regenerating water, the plant helps replenish underground water sources, preventing them from being overused and becoming salty due to seawater intrusion. The ultrafiltration system also removes microplastics. The entire process is carefully monitored with continuous testing to determine the amount of nutrients in the water provided to farmers.
The Punta del Hidalgo plant was originally built in the early 1980s. In recent years, changes have been made to improve the quality of the water it releases and to make it more energy-efficient. However, population growth in the area meant that the plant needed to be expanded. It also needed to become more energy-efficient and improve water quality so that farmers could reuse the water for irrigation.
In May 2023, La Laguna City Council received a grant of 1,799,077 euros from the Canary Islands government to support the project of reusing regenerated water for agriculture. This funding made the complete renovation of the plant possible. The grant was part of a program to fund projects in Biosphere Reserves, supported by the European Union's Next-Generation funds.