Municipalities - AMAP
The metropolitan area of Barcelona represents an area of over 600 km2, comprising 36 municipalities and a group of over three million people (3,239,337 inhabitants in 2018) (16). At the local level, several municipalities promote greywater reuse and rainwater harvesting systems through local regulations. (7) Municipalities have played an emerging role in the controversy in public debate and as interviewees have pointed out, remunicipalisation is the new topic of the agenda on water.
AMAP is a public agency of municipalities and entities and works as a support for local councils that want to move towards public water management. Their values are that water is a common and essential good that must be managed, democratically and publicly. Concerning desalination they have a rather nuanced stance if not anti-desalination. Contrary to many of our interviewees LLuis Basteiro from AMAP declared :
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“Catalonia is an area of ​​water risk. But the situation will not be better achieved by increasing the production of the desalination plant, but with a moratorium on urban growth”
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He gave the example of the moratorium on urban growth of the Costa Brava. He also affirmed that desalination emerged as an alternative, but that, to them, is not part of the new water culture which promotes the use of reclaimed water and grey water. In this sense AMAP is particularly opposed to Agbar as they are resisting the remunicipalisation movement, taking to court the municipalities that do not want to continue outsourcing water management.