Commission sends bill on seawater desalination to the Treasury

Statement from the Senate of Chile

This is an automated translation of the press release issued in Spanish

After an intensive study of the proposals presented, the Committee on Water Resources, Desertification and Drought concluded with a vote on the project on the use of seawater for desalination . The initiative was thus ready to be studied by the Finance Committee before being sent to the Chamber.

It should be noted that this project is in its first stage and has its origin in a motion by former senator Adriana Muñoz, senator Isabel Allende and former senators Alejandro Guillier, Felipe Harboe and Jorge Pizarro.

The president of the Water Resources Commission, Senator Yasna Provoste, praised the project's dispatch and said she hopes it can be seen in the Chamber in October.

"We are pleased that the committee was able to approve the desalination project, which will be passed on to the Finance Committee and the Senate. This is very important news, because in Chile there was no legal system that regulated desalination processes in the context of the water crisis," said the senator.

He indicated that the idea of this project "is to guarantee human consumption and different productive activities, with a legal framework that establishes that salt water is a national good for public use. The legal body clarifies that there must be a national desalination strategy and a role is given to the public company ECONSSA so that it can have greater support to be able to initiate this desalination process."

Senator Provoste also explained that the initiative "establishes the ownership, the resignations and that the ministry in charge will be Defense, a portfolio that will require a report that will be binding from the Water Authority for the authorization of the concessions or for the conditions that this right must have."

The parliamentarian also explained that "the initiative highlights the role of regional governors, because they are the ones who lead the coastal planning instruments and it establishes that these plants must adhere to these territorial plans."

The senator emphasized that the Water Resources Committee worked on the project very quickly, doubling the sessions and "we hope that the Finance Committee will focus on the matters related to the financial aspects of the legal body and that in October it will be voted on in the Senate chamber."

ADVANCE

Senator Sergio Gahona, member of the Water Resources Committee, highlighted the work done in that instance and said that "we are satisfied with what has been achieved so far, without prejudice to the fact that there are some things that are not entirely satisfactory and that we will discuss later in the Chamber with the reinstatement of some indications or separate votes."

He pointed out that "in general, it is a project that is quite well done and the issue is quite advanced and we hope that in the Chamber it will have a quick and agile legislative process because the bulk of it was addressed in a good manner here in the Senate and we hope that the Chamber of Deputies will understand it that way. I am not 100% satisfied with what has come out of the Commission but it is a good step forward and we will correct some things in the Chamber with the reinstatement of indications."

Among the aspects highlighted by Senator Gahona, is the "obligation of the State and of the governments to have a national desalination strategy in such a way that we do not continue with this installation and construction of desalination plants in any place, at any time, one next to the other, but that there is a territorial order and a clear and precise strategy of where we are going to go with the desalination of sea water for human consumption, for agricultural use, for industrial use, for mining use."

In this regard, he added, "today desalination plants do not have relevant legislation that can regulate their operation, therefore, it is a tremendous contribution to give certainty to the investment and to contribute to what is needed."