A few bends further we are surprised by some cars parked on the curb and a group of people sitting in a meadow surrounded by fir trees. "Are you counting?", we ask them, but they immediately answer that they are just having a picnic. About to start again, they are interested in what we are looking for, and we tell them that we are journalists. They brighten their faces and confirm to us that, indeed, they are the ones we are looking for. Carles Lumeras is president of the Coordinator for the Protection of Montseny, an organization that, since 1987, has mobilized to protect the area and its environment. Mercè Delgado is a member of Aigua Clara, an assembly recently created in the neighboring town of Arbúcies (la Selva) to channel the concern generated by the impact of mineral water bottling plants in these regions.
Both of them, along with other members of their collectives, have been setting up guards at the entrances of several houses for almost three months to make an estimate of the volume of bottled water that goes down the road in large trailers. "We have total mistrust towards the data given by employers and the Generalitat, because they come from the same companies or from the administration that is allowing this to happen. They are totally questionable from the moment they do not allow the contrast with figures that can be obtained independently", they state.
We jump to the other side of the Guilleries massif and the Susqueda and Sau marshes, which, with the church and the ancient village of Sant Romà exposed, has become an icon of the drought that the country is experiencing. We are in the Llémena valley, located between the counties of Gironès and Garrotxa, where Joan Carles Ximenes, president of Llémena Espai Natural, awaits us. This association operates in four municipalities: Canet d'Adri, Sant Gregori and Sant Martí de Llémena (in the Gironès) and Sant Aniol de Finestres (la Garrotxa), where we arrived and where the water plant of the company Sant Aniol SLU
In this case, the basin is that of the Llémena stream, which rises two kilometers above the Sant Aniol plant and ends in the municipal area of Sant Gregori, where it empties into the Ter river, whenever the rain makes a flow often non-existent. A resident of the valley, who asks to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, points out that the water table has decreased coinciding with the drought and the exponential increase in water extraction from the plant. "Fountains in the area, which years ago were scarce in quantity, have dried up, while there are others that now flow very little, except on factory holidays, which bring back the joy ", he assures.
"At the beginning of the plant, the predecessor of the ACA made an authorization for a maximum flow of 28,260 cubic meters per year, while that of Industry establishes a flow of 604,440 cubic meters. We find it incomprehensible that there is such a variation between the data given by two departments of the same administration, which is the Generalitat", says Ximenes with perplexity. However, it recognizes that, on the part of the ACA, there has been enough transparency, beyond the blocking of the private bottler, which has systematically opposed the delivery of the data and has made the processes eternal, according to the platform ecologist
A sequencing of miniature rectangular frames
Brightly colored skaters wove a narrative by sequencing miniature rectangular frames that approximated motion by blink, blink, blinking on a screen. This, of course, illuminated both the unimaginable and the painstakingly spatial. The event, suitable for the currant bloodstream, was on par with now. Always and only, now. Operatives frequented makeshift macros, transcripting vast vigilantes with whom they sought consult. Metropolis unbound.
The Department of Business and Labor figures at 350 million euros the total business volume of mineral water extraction companies in 2023. For its part, the most up-to-date data that the ACEA employer offers on its web portal they date from 2018 and indicate that 21% of the total liters bottled in Spain come from Catalonia, of which 4% are sparkling water and 96% still. However, it should be borne in mind that a significant percentage of the water extracted from the Catalan underground is exported around the world. Without going any further, Sant Aniol distributes approximately 10% of the 52 million liters of water that, according to data provided by the same company in the media, packed the year 2022.
In turn, ACEA estimates the per capita consumption of bottled water in Catalonia at 172 liters per person each year and Empresa i Treball ensures that in 2023 the exploitation of natural mineral and spring waters was 1,792,424 cubic meters . In other words, more than 1,792 million liters accumulated in a historical series of two decades where the year of lowest extraction was 2010, with 1,555 million liters packaged. However, the Department of Business and Labor assures that mineral water "represents a tiny amount of the global volume of underground water", while the employers of the sector defend that the volumes of extraction represent a 0.03% of the total available resources, without clarifying the origin of this figure.
A Francoist law
The same regulatory framework of the sector is what favors opacity. Natural mineral and mineromedicinal and thermal waters are regulated by a Francoist regulation, the mining law 22/1973, which dates from 1973 and which, despite several attempts to modify it, remains immovable. This means that the aquifers controlled by the bottling sector are outside the competences of the Catalan Water Agency, which paradoxically does manage the rest of the underground water resources. Therefore, Empresa i Treball applies state legislation in Catalonia that is limited to authorizing and managing the procedures for the use of water previously classified as mineral.
On the other hand, there are no exploitation concession contracts between the bottlers and the administration, but rather the activity is regulated through a system of administrative authorizations that "are decided by the general director of Industry, in accordance with criteria of compliance with all the requirements established in the legislation", they explain from the Department. "The mining law of 1973 allows the resource to be exploited until exhaustion and in perpetuity. In other words, there is no end date for this concession. He equates this type of water with a mineral, and so a mine is opened, mined, and when the resource runs out, they leave. This is the key to understanding it", certifies the president of Llémena Espai Natural.
In turn, ACEA estimates the per capita consumption of bottled water in Catalonia at 172 liters per person each year and Empresa i Treball ensures that in 2023 the exploitation of natural mineral and spring waters was 1,792,424 cubic meters . In other words, more than 1,792 million liters accumulated in a historical series of two decades where the year of lowest extraction was 2010, with 1,555 million liters packaged. However, the Department of Business and Labor assures that mineral water "represents a tiny amount of the global volume of underground water", while the employers of the sector defend that the volumes of extraction represent a 0.03% of the total available resources, without clarifying the origin of this figure.
A Francoist law
The same regulatory framework of the sector is what favors opacity. Natural mineral and mineromedicinal and thermal waters are regulated by a Francoist regulation, the mining law 22/1973, which dates from 1973 and which, despite several attempts to modify it, remains immovable. This means that the aquifers controlled by the bottling sector are outside the competences of the Catalan Water Agency, which paradoxically does manage the rest of the underground water resources. Therefore, Empresa i Treball applies state legislation in Catalonia that is limited to authorizing and managing the procedures for the use of water previously classified as mineral.
On the other hand, there are no exploitation concession contracts between the bottlers and the administration, but rather the activity is regulated through a system of administrative authorizations that "are decided by the general director of Industry, in accordance with criteria of compliance with all the requirements established in the legislation", they explain from the Department. "The mining law of 1973 allows the resource to be exploited until exhaustion and in perpetuity. In other words, there is no end date for this concession. He equates this type of water with a mineral, and so a mine is opened, mined, and when the resource runs out, they leave. This is the key to understanding it", certifies the president of Llémena Espai Natural.
A sequencing of miniature rectangular frames
Brightly colored skaters wove a narrative by sequencing miniature rectangular frames that approximated motion by blink, blink, blinking on a screen. This, of course, illuminated both the unimaginable and the painstakingly spatial. The event, suitable for the currant bloodstream, was on par with now. Always and only, now. Operatives frequented makeshift macros, transcripting vast vigilantes with whom they sought consult. Metropolis unbound.
A sequencing of miniature rectangular frames
Brightly colored skaters wove a narrative by sequencing miniature rectangular frames that approximated motion by blink, blink, blinking on a screen. This, of course, illuminated both the unimaginable and the painstakingly spatial. The event, suitable for the currant bloodstream, was on par with now. Always and only, now. Operatives frequented makeshift macros, transcripting vast vigilantes with whom they sought consult. Metropolis unbound.
The age of the waters could be determined through isotopic studies, but environmental organizations report that they have no evidence that such work has been carried out. On the other hand, the plants and the administration do provide rainfall studies when, on the contrary, they insist on the fact that the level of rain does not affect these underground aquifers and, some of them, confined. Professor Màsich assures that the recharge capacity "is always there if it continues to rain the same and if the aquifer is not overexploited". "To know what the situation of the aquifers is, you should observe the data of a series of years and make an average", he explains.
Marta Picó is a geologist specializing in hydrogeology at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He works in a private sector consultancy and points out that he has not worked for any bottling company for 25 years, something common in a small guild that does not have many professionals. "Many times hydrogeologists who do not get wet are asked for their opinion because it can negatively affect them in the professional field", he points out. Regarding the studies, he confirms that they are complex and require data that is not easy to obtain: "If they don't provide them, they can't be done, they are expensive, a lot of research is needed and the support of the Generalitat, which is opaque on this issue and requires the services of professional associations that have trade union interests. Therefore, trust cannot be total", he explains.
Picó confirms that the bottling plants are located in the preferential recharge areas of the aquifers. That is, at the source of the river courses, places where the runoff from the rain causes more water to accumulate. "With the current rainfall regime and forecasts of a decrease due to the climate emergency, we do not know what the regeneration capacity of these aquifers will be... if they are confined and watertight, as the bottlers claim to argue that they are not under the influence of precipitation, there will come a time when they will end, because it is a closed bag and a finite resource, like oil bags. It is a public good that they are bottling and it will not return to the basin, we are selling the country's water", she says worriedly. He criticizes that this extractivist industry talks about "production" of mineral water, when "water is not produced". "The water is there, it is always the same, it is not created anew; you will find it in the clouds, in the rivers, in the sea, in the aquifers, but it is not created, this is a poisoned message", remarks Picó.
Marta Picó is a geologist specializing in hydrogeology at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He works in a private sector consultancy and points out that he has not worked for any bottling company for 25 years, something common in a small guild that does not have many professionals. "Many times hydrogeologists who do not get wet are asked for their opinion because it can negatively affect them in the professional field", he points out. Regarding the studies, he confirms that they are complex and require data that is not easy to obtain: "If they don't provide them, they can't be done, they are expensive, a lot of research is needed and the support of the Generalitat, which is opaque on this issue and requires the services of professional associations that have trade union interests. Therefore, trust cannot be total", he explains.
Picó confirms that the bottling plants are located in the preferential recharge areas of the aquifers. That is, at the source of the river courses, places where the runoff from the rain causes more water to accumulate. "With the current rainfall regime and forecasts of a decrease due to the climate emergency, we do not know what the regeneration capacity of these aquifers will be... if they are confined and watertight, as the bottlers claim to argue that they are not under the influence of precipitation, there will come a time when they will end, because it is a closed bag and a finite resource, like oil bags. It is a public good that they are bottling and it will not return to the basin, we are selling the country's water", she says worriedly. He criticizes that this extractivist industry talks about "production" of mineral water, when "water is not produced". "The water is there, it is always the same, it is not created anew; you will find it in the clouds, in the rivers, in the sea, in the aquifers, but it is not created, this is a poisoned message", remarks Picó.
Annelies Broekman, who studies the implementation of water policies and is a researcher at the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), is positioned in the same line, an institute where several administrations and universities participate. "We have never seen numbers that prove what they tell us, which is that the aquifers are in balance. If they are confined and not recharged, I don't understand how you can do a sustainable extraction”. Broekman affirms that the bottling companies are protected by industrial secrecy in order not to provide data that could be useful for their competition, and claims "it cannot be that the competent authority does not have this data, a study of the deep aquifer del Montseny-Guilleries should be of public use. It is a privatization of a very strategic resource for Catalan society as a whole when dealing with climate change. They would be the last resources we would have left when there is no more water. They are potentially competing with the supply of the population" he concludes. "Inhabitants, municipalities and entities must ask themselves these questions and take joint responsibility for finding out the answers", he says.
Crystalline requests
"In order to facilitate the volume of business of each of the companies, it is necessary to make the inquiry through transparency", specified the press office of the Department of Business and Employment in Directa in an email. "We only publish industrial consumption aggregated by municipality or region, but not by sector or type of activity because the subjects could be identified", the counterpart cabinet of the Catalan Water Agency also confirmed to us. However, weeks after completing individual requests to the two branches of the Catalan administration through the Transparency portal, at the time of closing this edition, all requests for information have either been denied or not provided.
Halfway between Garrotxa and Gironès, Llémena Espai Natural demands a study from the administration with real data, "to assess the impact that the Sant Aniol plant is causing on the water system". While it develops, the extraction volume should be reduced, and once it is, it will be determined what they can do." From Montseny, the environmental entities demand "to know what the situation of the aquifers really is and a moratorium until an independent piezometric study is carried out to see what their condition is, what the flows are like and how it is affecting the discharge that is taking place producing in the natural park and the entire massif".
Crystalline requests
"In order to facilitate the volume of business of each of the companies, it is necessary to make the inquiry through transparency", specified the press office of the Department of Business and Employment in Directa in an email. "We only publish industrial consumption aggregated by municipality or region, but not by sector or type of activity because the subjects could be identified", the counterpart cabinet of the Catalan Water Agency also confirmed to us. However, weeks after completing individual requests to the two branches of the Catalan administration through the Transparency portal, at the time of closing this edition, all requests for information have either been denied or not provided.
Halfway between Garrotxa and Gironès, Llémena Espai Natural demands a study from the administration with real data, "to assess the impact that the Sant Aniol plant is causing on the water system". While it develops, the extraction volume should be reduced, and once it is, it will be determined what they can do." From Montseny, the environmental entities demand "to know what the situation of the aquifers really is and a moratorium until an independent piezometric study is carried out to see what their condition is, what the flows are like and how it is affecting the discharge that is taking place producing in the natural park and the entire massif".
"We have not asked for data, we have chosen to go down a different path. The previous experience of the colleagues in the Llémena valley has been an ordeal of requests and formalities, without being able to obtain truthful information about what is happening or even obtain a copy, when it comes to information that should be public" , reports Carles Lumeras, president of the Coordinator for the Protection of Montseny, from the access road to Nestlé Waters' Viladrau water plant. "Another one is coming!" exclaims one of her colleagues, while a third person notes in a quadrant the characteristics of the truck that passes in front of us. The group is organized in two-hour shifts and monitors from six in the morning until ten at night, with the aim of counting the entries and exits of trailers and making an approximate calculation of how many liters are left in bottles in one day They have managed to reliably find out how many bottles each pallet can carry and how many pallets each type of trailer can carry. They organize the guards on random days and they change floors. Today is the third day of this action.
Mercè Delgado, a member of Aigua Clara, explains that during a shift at the Font Agudes plant they counted approximately 1,400,000 liters. In other words, what is equivalent to the water consumption of the daily population of Arbúcies, according to their calculations. This is just one of the bottling plants in the town. "On the first day, in Font del Regàs, we estimated 663,600 litres, but it was at the beginning of February and in the spring the extraction skyrockets to have reserves for the summer, which is when the product is sold the most", he points out. Delgado affirms that they intend to continue collecting data and then make it available to the population and denounce the opacity of the activity. "We do it because the administrations don't do it", he complains. Later on, they also plan to request the official data: "Then we will compare them, but initially we will rely on what we have obtained by doing field work at the different bottling plants. With this we will have a fairly real idea of what is happening, checked by us and not based on the data provided by the employers' association. Today it is only two in the afternoon and they have already counted thirty large trailers that have left the Viladrau water plant.
Mercè Delgado, a member of Aigua Clara, explains that during a shift at the Font Agudes plant they counted approximately 1,400,000 liters. In other words, what is equivalent to the water consumption of the daily population of Arbúcies, according to their calculations. This is just one of the bottling plants in the town. "On the first day, in Font del Regàs, we estimated 663,600 litres, but it was at the beginning of February and in the spring the extraction skyrockets to have reserves for the summer, which is when the product is sold the most", he points out. Delgado affirms that they intend to continue collecting data and then make it available to the population and denounce the opacity of the activity. "We do it because the administrations don't do it", he complains. Later on, they also plan to request the official data: "Then we will compare them, but initially we will rely on what we have obtained by doing field work at the different bottling plants. With this we will have a fairly real idea of what is happening, checked by us and not based on the data provided by the employers' association. Today it is only two in the afternoon and they have already counted thirty large trailers that have left the Viladrau water plant.
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BOTTLERS WITHOUT CLEAR WATER
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