The vice president of the Aguas del Huesna Consortium, José María Villalobos, has requested «institutional collaboration» from the City Council of El Cuervo following the criticism expressed by the local PP, the governing party in the municipality, regarding the delay in the arrival of alternative water supply due to the supply cut that already affected a dozen Sevillian municipalities on Friday due to a breakdown in Tocina, with significant damage such as seven hundred affected homes in this locality.
A new incident during this day has caused new repair works to begin, after a leak was detected at a joint assembly of two pipes. Therefore, the new forecast is that «the service will be progressively restored based on the distance of each municipality to the drinking water treatment plant of Villanueva del Río and Minas,» as stated by the consortium today.
After emphasizing that the Council announced «the distribution of bottled water, 90,000 liters, door to door, and that, in addition, between nine and 12 tanker trucks with drinking water would be mobilized (one for each municipality)» due to the impact on the main water pipeline of Aguas del Huesna, the PP spokesperson and mayor, José Manuel Oliva, stated that «not a single bottle of water reached our town until after 10:00 p.m.»
Regarding the tanker trucks, «after being postponed time and time again throughout the afternoon, at 11:00 p.m. it was communicated to us that it would not arrive until at least this morning, citing that the truck had to stop due to the tachograph,» reproached the PP mayor.
On his part, Villalobos explained in a statement, first, that they have informed «promptly all our affected municipalities» of the series of incidents and breakdowns in the main network, while affirming that «we have worked tirelessly on the repairs, first to prevent impact on citizens and subsequently to restore the supply, which we continue to do wholeheartedly.»
The vice president wanted to highlight that El Cuervo «maintained the drinking water supply until after 6:30 p.m. in the lower areas, although the upper parts of the town began to lose service from 1:00 p.m. when the height of the tank did not allow to guarantee pressure to the higher areas.»
Villalobos stated that «between 8:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on the same Friday, four pallets were sent to the City Council with 576 liters of water each in 1.5-liter bottles and 23 5-liter jugs for distribution by the City Council, as previously agreed.»
Regarding the tanker truck provided by Aguas del Huesna to the City Council, it was mentioned that it finished loading at 9:30 p.m. on Friday in Los Palacios, but due to worker safety reasons, the company could not put it into circulation to comply with rest hours.
However, «before 7:00 a.m. this morning, technicians from Aguas del Huesna conducted an analysis to ensure the quality of the water in this tanker, arriving in El Cuervo at 8:05 a.m. where it serves the population at the points established by the City Council.»
In this sense, Villalobos wanted to emphasize «the quality of the drinking water distributed in the tankers, which meets all health guarantees» and «completely rejects any doubts about its potability.» «We have the obligation, and we do so, to conduct a quality analysis measuring parameters of turbidity, chlorine, and pH for each load of each tank.»
