Following a public complaint by the environmental organisation Amics de la Terra, who protested against the government and the town council of Sant Joan for allowing the owner of a mansion in Sant Llorenç to empty and refill the three swimming pools on his property, the villa's manager sought to defend the property's interests, emphasising that these accusations 'damage the image of a property that is also up for sale'.
In its statement, Amics de la Terra pointed out that one of the pools is 'enormous' and, given Ibiza's current drought, the consumption of scarce water resources should be 'totally unacceptable'. Regarding this issue, Martín, the manager of the villa, informed this newspaper that the pool had not been emptied for six years and that this was due to maintenance work.
In his own words, ‘only what is lost through evaporation is replenished, about two cubic metres every three or four days’. In addition, the manager of the mansion points out that there are not three swimming pools, as one of them is actually a pond ‘about 40 centimetres deep’.
The latter does indeed empty at the end of the year, as this water, unlike that in swimming pools, does not undergo any chemical treatment, which is why it generates algae.
However, the person in charge of the villa emphasises that the mansion does not incur excessive water costs and points out that, from his professional experience, he is aware that there are villas ‘that request one or two lorries of water almost every day, which must be considered some kind of offence’, while this villa ‘is emptying the pool for the first time in six years’.
The manager of this mansion in Sant Llorenç wonders why this property has been singled out, ‘which is not even connected to the electricity grid, as it runs entirely on solar energy,’ and not so many other villas on the island ‘that do violate the regulations.’
This is precisely what the Amics de la Terra statement agrees with, as they pointed out that this property ‘is not an isolated case, since water wastage is common practice in luxury homes’.