Consell de Formentera president Alejandra Ferrer visited the island’s irrigation pond today with Mae de la Concha, chief of the Balearic office of agriculture. Other officials at the gathering included local councillors of environment and the primary sector, Antonio J Sanz and Josep Marí, respectively, as well as the heads of the regional government’s agriculture and water resource divisions (Gabriel Torrens and Joana Garau, respectively) and the managing director of Balearic Agency for Water and Environmental Quality (Abaqua), Guillem Rosselló.
Hailing De la Concha’s visit, Ferrer insisted that “the proper working order of the irrigation pond is crucial for Formentera because it enables us to close the water cycle”. The minister, for her part, pointed out that €94k already set aside in the 2020 budgets is intended so that only the highest quality water gets to local fields.
Purification plant expansion
Attendees also spoke about projects to equip Es Ca Marí with sanitation and upgrade the waste water pump in Es Pujols. The Abaqua chief said increasing capacity at the water treatment station known as “Edar” to 3,500 cubic metres would mean waste water from Es Ca Marí could be treated as well. Decision makers say that those measures, taken together, are key to making sure infrastructure works properly, and that the water ending up in fields and at the drainage pipe is clean—essential to closing the water cycle properly.
Ferrer identified high-grade water as vital to the Formentera government’s commitment to the local farming (in the past, that support has taken the form of reactivating the co-operative of Formentera farmers, in 2010, or creating the Farmland Reserve, in 2015). “So many fields that had sat fallow have been turned over to the co-operative so they can be tilled again; it’s a way to maintain our original natural beauty and reactivate the countryside”, she concluded.
29 January 2020
Department of Communication
Consell de Formentera
Formentera’s youth department wishes to announce its activities programme for February at the Casal de Joves. Every Wednesday at 6.30pm, Casal members can cosy up on the settee with popcorn, friends and a rotating selection of films of particular relevance to youngsters.
Susana Labrador, Formentera’s vice-president and councillor of education and culture, stood in Palma’s Teatre Principal today to unveil the lineup of performing artists at this year’s jointly-organised —and two-time visitor to Formentera— Barnasants festival of independent songwriters. Labrador gave a press conference with Bel Búsquets, her opposite number on Mallorca, plus Teatre Principal boss Josep Ramón Cerdà, Barnasants director Pere Camps and the head of the Manacor city government’s culture division, Mateu Marcé, where all eyes were glued to the scheduled list of contributors—this year even on Menorca and Mallorca. Artists at the gathering included Quico Pi de la Serra, Tomeu Penya, Clara Fiol, Joan Muntaner “Xanguito” and Marcel Pic.
Formentera president Alejandra Ferrer met at the seat of local government today with the deputy first minister and minister of energy and manufacturing in the Balearics, Juan Pedro Yllanes. Other participants included Formentera’s councillors of land and environment, Antonio J Sanz and Rafael González, respectively, and Aitor Urresti, who heads the regional government’s energy and climate change division.
In celebration of Emilio Martínez and Toni Terrasa —two men considered the original pioneers of local basketball in the eighties— Formentera’s department of sport has announced that two new basketball hoops have been put up in children’s parks in La Savina and next to Marc Ferrer high school in Sant Francesc.