Water madness

The Balearic environmental group GOB has slammed the Minister for the Environment Jaume Matas claiming that he is obsessed with building water desalination plants. Jaume Matas, former leader of the local government and now minister for the Environment in Jose Maria Aznar's cabinet, wants to build eight new water desalination plants in the Balearics to ensure that the islands have an adequate supply of fresh water. But GOB maintains that building these plants would result in a new power station having to be built just to power the water plants. “This scheme is ridiculous. Desalination is exceptionally costly and has other negative affects,” the environmentalists said in a statement. The three big electricity users in the Balearics are Palma airport, the Bay of Palma water desalination plant and the Lloseta cement factory. GOB says that the local government should forget about desalination plants and introduce a new policy based on the need to save water and on using recycled water. GOB also believes that development should be halted.