The town of Rogliano must produce 500 cubic meters of water per day.
Faced with drought and the risk of water shortage, the village of Rogliano in Haute-Corse opted to acquire a desalination unit, a first on this Mediterranean island. “We no longer have a choice, we are going to be the pioneers in Corsica to install a desalination unit to produce 500 cubic meters of drinking water per day which must start operating around September 10“, explained to AFP Patrice Quilici, mayor of this village located at the tip of Cap Corse which includes the marina of Macinaggio, very popular with tourists.
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Rogliano’s drinking water is stored in a reservoir with a capacity of 48,000 m3 and whose level was 16,500 m3 on August 1, knowing that the village sees its population almost tenfold in summer with the arrival of many tourists. As a result, drinking water consumption increased to around 1,000 m3 per day, or 15 days of reserve, detailed the mayor. The village “goes from 650 inhabitants in winter to 6000 in season. All young people have businesses or work in tourism or yachting“, underlines the city councilor.
Second desalination for the port of Maccinaggio
“The preparations and the authorizations were long but I hope that we will succeed in making the connection between our reserve and the desalination unit“, declared, worried, Patrice Quilici whose municipality knows restrictions of use of water since April 1st. For a total cost of1 million and 50,000 euros“, partly supported by the State and the Community of Corsica, according to the mayor, this unit must operate until December before being stored and put back into service next year.
The idea came from a previous experience in Macinaggio, in 2002: “Veolia had installed a temporary desalination unit for two months which saved the town from a water shortage“, he explained. “40 minutes from the port of Macinaggio, the Italian island of Capraia (..) has been operating for 10 years with a desalination plant, they are autonomous all year round and no longer have any problems“, he argued.
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In France, the Breton island of Sein has a desalination plant and a project is being studied on the island of Groix, also in Brittany. Desalination plants are increasingly present in the world, which today has 1.5 to 2 billion people living in regions where water is lacking for at least part of the year, according to the UN. . And climate change promises to worsen the situation: with each additional degree gained, half a billion people will lose 20% of their fresh water, predicts the group of UN experts on climate (IPCC).
But a study by UN University researchers in Canada, the Netherlands and South Korea, published in 2019, showed that the 16,000 desalination plants installed worldwide, which produce nearly 100 million cubic meters of desalinated water per day, create more toxic waste than water. On average, for every liter of fresh water generated, 1.5 liters of saline sludge is released, usually into the ocean, disrupting ecosystems.