Let's hope that the rains over Christmas made a difference but around mid December La Viñuela Reservoir stood at only 17% (28.2c/hm).

Whilst the rest of the Axarquía is feeling the squeeze, Nerja has an abundance of water thanks to Río Chillar.

Interestingly, the name Nerja comes from Arabic, Narixa, which means quantiful spring and hence the name of the area, water-utility company (Narixa).

Now, because Nerja has a good supply of water, the Junta has decided to force 650 dwelings within urbanizaciones in Nerja to connect up to the mains instead of using irrigation water from the Comunidad de Regantes y Usuarios Fuente del Badén. They have until the 1st of January this year to do it.

This is to comply with the instructions from the Board of Agriculture, Livestock, Fishing and Sustainable Development which has told the Fuente del Badén irrigation society “to stop supplying water to dwellings.”

The irrigation company informed the Town Hall and its members that the 31st of december was the last day and instructed the affected properities to contact Narixa to carry out the connection work.

The Comunidad de Regantes y Usuarios Fuente del Badén has supplied 4,000 dwellings with mains water since 1979 for which reason the comunidad considers that it has helped decisively the development of Nerja over the last 40 years.

In fact, they consider that “some of those in charge of the municipal water board, for reasons of their own economic interest, have considered the comunidad as competition for them because of the quality of the comunidad’s water supply and that it is cheaper than what the utility company provides for which reason they have hounded the comunidad and denounced them before several administrative levels of government.”

Hence this order coming down from above to cease supplying dwellings with a domestic water supply.

Editorial comment: so, the question is, has this order from the Junta been given exclusively because of the drought and that exiting irrigation water should be used exclusively for crops, or is there dirty dealings within the Town Hall and its municipal water-utility company, Narixa?

(News: Nerja, Axarquia, Costa del Sol, Malaga, Andalucia)