siam park gran canaria desalination plant

Siam Park Gran Canaria must build its own desalination plant

Compiled with the help of artificial intelligence, based on Spanish-language information. Source below the article.

The plan for the Siam Park in Gran Canaria to source its water from municipal desalination plants without increasing their capacity has come to nothing. The Canary Islands Government’s environmental body has closed the door on that possibility and has instructed the promoter of the initiative, the tourism group Kiessling (owners of Loro Parque, the Siam Park in Tenerife and the Poema del Mar aquarium in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), to build a new desalination plant to supply the water park itself or to expand production at existing facilities.

A demand equal to that of more than 20,000 residents

This is set out in the plan’s scoping document, a report signed on 18 September by the Regional Environmental Assessment Commission that establishes the aspects the project’s future strategic environmental assessment must address. The text warns that the Siam Park in Gran Canaria will bring about a “very significant” increase in water demand and considers it “necessary to justify the guarantee of that supply” through the construction of new desalination plants or the expansion of existing ones. Projected consumption amounts to 3,563 cubic metres per day, the equivalent of the usage of some 20,739 residents of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, the municipality where the park is planned.

Municipal plants ruled out

The Commission has thus halted Kiessling’s initial intention of turning to the desalination plants that already supply the Maspalomas and Playa del Inglés area (Maspalomas I and II, with a combined production of around 39,000 cubic metres per day) to cover the entire demand of the development. The municipality consumes 14,390 cubic metres.

The scoping document also states that it “would be advisable to make maximum use” of rainwater through measures that allow it to be stored and reused. The body highlights this option given the conditions of the surroundings where the Siam Park in Gran Canaria is planned: a desert landscape where the risk of desertification is high to very high, the soils are arid, vegetation survives under water stress and climate change will reduce already scarce rainfall by up to 25%. Every drop counts.

Waste water, noise and light

The Commission also notes that a “considerable increase” in waste water is expected and demands that its proper treatment be guaranteed. It likewise calls for compliance with noise and light pollution regulations if night-time events are held, given the project’s proximity to tourist and residential areas.

A 500-year study to prevent flooding

Another of the most controversial aspects of the water park promoted by the Kiessling group is its location in an area of significant flood risk, specifically in the El Veril ravine. Although the watercourse has a channel that carries water down to Las Burras beach and prevents seepage, the environmental body warns that this infrastructure accelerates the speed of the flow. It therefore requires a study that takes climate crisis projections into account and simulates extreme episodes with a 500-year return period, in order to determine whether the capacity of the current channel needs to be expanded.

On the other hand, the Commission has requested a detailed analysis of traffic, access and road capacity given the high volume of visitors expected. The project also includes a five-star hotel with around 450 tourist beds. The environmental body also calls for the hotel and leisure facilities to be integrated into the surroundings and for construction work to involve the minimum possible movement of earth. In addition, it requires the promoter to include among its implementation scenarios the possibility that the project may never be built.

Protected habitat and archaeological sites

Finally, the Commission requests detailed field inventories to delimit and protect Habitat of Community Interest 5330 (thermo-Mediterranean scrubland) and protected species, as well as an assessment of the conservation status of the archaeological sites and ethnographic assets present in the area.

The next steps

The scoping document works as a roadmap setting out what aspects the project’s strategic environmental assessment must include. Once drafted, the study will be put out for public consultation and will again be assessed by the authorities and interested parties. The final decision on its environmental viability will be set out in the strategic environmental declaration.

More than three years after the Supreme Court ruling

The reactivation of the Siam Park in Gran Canaria has come more than three years after the Supreme Court annulled the previous plan over the lack of a report from the Island Water Council certifying precisely the existence and availability of water resources to run a water park. The development was declared to be of general and strategic interest by the Cabildo de Gran Canaria in 2014, then presided over by José Miguel Bravo de Laguna (Partido Popular), and also secured that consideration from the Canary Islands Government in 2015, during Fernando Clavijo’s first term at the head of the regional executive (Coalición Canaria). In March this year, Wolfgang Kiessling, founder and managing director of Loro Parque, said the park was “closer than it is far” after years of paperwork.

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