at Monistrol, the Llobregat hugs the eastern border of the Monsterrat mountains. The mountains of Monsterrat look like a geological mistake. They rise out of nowhere like fingers reaching into the sky. It is no wonder that monks chose these mountains as a refuge for reflection and prayer. These mountains, its virgin of Montserrat and the boys choir that sing for Christian worshipers, have all become symbols of Catalan pride. While most Catalans are devout atheists, they all respect the virgin of Monsterrat, also called la moraneta or the 'dark one' because her statue was miraculously found black. The widespread respect for the holy shine monastery of Monsterrat, even from the non-believing, is the product of the Catalan nationalism espoused by the clerics of Monsterrat. The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had a hard time constraining the pride of Catalan clerics, and as a result, Montserrat also became a space for resistance, and where one could proudly speak Catalan.The trail from Monistrol to Olesa was excellent, and I was surprised to see so much vegetation near the river. There are still dams and abandoned mills in this segment. I tried to visit a natural spring with sulfuric water but the guard who takes care of the abandoned mansion nearby wouldn't let me through. I was in a rush anyway. I had an afternoon appointment with the drinking water plant in Abrera managed by Aigues Ter Llobregat (ATLL). Earlier in the summer I had tried to make an appointment with them, but it wasn't until Roger Lloret made the phone call for me that someone at ATLL agreed to meet with me.
Near Olesa, I found raw sewage being dumped into the Llobregat. It was very smelly.
Only a few meters downstream, I noticed treated sewage released into the river as well. From the map, I could tell that I was close to two waste water treatment plants. Taking a careful look at the center of the river, aided by a bridge, I could see plumes of dark sewage being released into an already cloudy river. It looked as if a pipe with holes ran across the river, and sewage was being evenly released at each hole.
Downstream, in Abrera, I was fortunate to be received by the team at Aigues Ter
-Llobregat (ATLL) who are responsible for converting the dirty Llobregat into drinking water. I asked Ramon Arbos, Fernando Valero and Angel Barcelo from ATLL about how their work might be different if the water they received from the Llobregat were as clean as it was in the Baells reservoir. They agreed that cleaner water would imply reduced treatment costs. To filter water from the Llobregat, the ATLL plant uses expensive activated carbon filters in addition to the traditional sand filters. The activated carbon is costly to purchase and maintain. Periodically it must be trucked to Italy where they submit the carbon to high temperatures to remove the unwanted filtered material. Every time the filter goes through this process, the Italian oven burns away a bit of the carbon itself, which needs to be replaced, also at a cost. This raises the question, what if one could show the connection between improved river quality and reduced treatment costs?
Angel Barcelo gave me an excellent tour of the miniature treatment plant used to test new equipment and procedures. I saw the sand filter, carbon filter and chlorination station. Angel explains that the pre-chlorination process was eliminated because the chlorine reacted with the salts to create carcinogenic compounds. He also confirmed that the new desalination plant being contstructed is a direct consequence of the high salt content in the Llobregat. I wonder if this multimillion dollar investment could have been avoided with more active watershed management upstream. The new desalination plant, using 'electrodialisis' technology from General Electric, is highly energy intensive, although less so than 'reverse osmosis' technology planned for the lower Llobregat Delta and the AGBAR plant at Sant Joan Despi. I left the ATLL plant very happy with the tour I was given, and excited about the possibilities of collaborating with those I had met at the water treatment plant.
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