Generalitat Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL)
Company that provides drinking water to the metropolitan area of Barcelona.
This company was in charge of supplying 4.2 million people in 140 municipalities located in the Condal City conurbation. It manages the El Prat desalination plant and the Ter and Llobregat river water treatment plants. Once the water was treated, it was delivered to the various companies that channel it to the taps of each subscriber (XXX).
"Having this guarantee of supply and being able to have the desalination plant when we need it is much cheaper than not having it in periods of drought", says Lleonard Carcolé, president of the company Aigües Ter-Llobregat, which manages the large network of supply in the Barcelona region.
Although the production cost of drinking water from the desalination plant is more than double that of water from the plant of Sant Joan Despi (Llobregat), which is 0.22 euros per m3, Carcolé warns: “Still, the threat of a serious drought in the future can never be ruled out " (XXXI).
Company that provides drinking water to the metropolitan area of Barcelona.
On November 6th 2012, Aigües Ter-Llobregat was privatized and sold to Acciona to help balance the Generalitat’s accounts. Under Artur Mas’ government, the Generalitat leased ATLL, the entire regional raw‐water supplier to an international consortium led by the Spanish infrastructure company Acciona and the Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual, for 1 billion euros to save its budgets, heavily damaged by the economic crisis. It was the biggest privatization in Catalonia’s history and established a 50 years contract of water supply service, including Barcelona's desalination plant management (XXX). Acciona's technologies and scientific expertise were also put to work in London, though the construction of the Thames Water desalination plant. At the same time as a financialized model of water provision can be seen to have been transported from Australia to Barcelona via London (5).
However, there was a sentence in Octobre 2019. The Court of Justice of Catalonia declared the contract void and the award to Acciona, giving rise to a public management of water.