10 September 2009: an agreement divides responsibility for water and waste services between Pratdip and the EUCC

On 10 September 2009, Pratdip Town Council and the Urban Development Conservation Entity of Planes del Rei (EUCC) signed an agreement setting out how drinking-water supply and waste collection were to be managed in Planas del Rey.

The document was signed by Josep Montané i Vidal, in his capacity as Mayor of Pratdip, and by Christian Peuman, President of the EUCC.

The agreement states from the outset that both parties wish to work together in order to implement the judgment of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia of 25 January 2008.

That judgment had annulled the inclusion of water supply and waste collection in the EUCC’s urban development charges. The September 2009 agreement therefore sets out in practical terms how those two services were to be managed and billed from then on.

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The Town Council takes over water billing and waste collection

The first major change concerns the role of the Town Council.

The agreement provides that Pratdip Town Council will take over the collection of drinking-water bills from property owners in Planes del Rei.

It also provides that the Town Council will directly provide the waste-collection service and manage the corresponding billing for property owners in the development.

In simple terms: from this agreement onwards, the amounts relating to water and waste are no longer to be included, as before, in ordinary EUCC urban development charges. The Town Council becomes directly involved in billing and, in the case of waste, in providing the service itself.

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The Town Council does not, however, become the owner of the water network

The agreement immediately introduces an important qualification.

The fact that the Town Council takes over the collection of water bills does not mean that it takes ownership of the installations.

The document states that the installations remain the property of the EUCC until the Entity has properly completed the urban development works, at which point the Town Council is to formally take over those works.

In simple terms: the agreement once again distinguishes between several concepts that are not the same: billing for a service, operating or maintaining the installations, owning them, and formally taking over the development are separate matters.

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The EUCC remains heavily involved in the operation of the water network

Despite the Town Council taking over part of the management, the EUCC retains significant responsibilities.

For 2008 and 2009, it must provide the Town Council with the individual water-meter readings.

From 2010 onwards, the Town Council is to take the readings itself where the meters are accessible from outside the plots. Where meters remain inside private properties, the EUCC continues to provide the readings to the Town Council.

The agreement also requires users to move their water meters to the outside of their plots within three months. If they fail to do so, they may be charged the maximum tariff corresponding to the relevant estimated-consumption band.

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Ordinary operating costs are included in the water bills

The agreement also defines which expenses are considered ordinary costs of drinking-water supply.

These include:

• the electricity required to operate the installations;
• water chlorination;
• the annual charge payable to the Catalan Water Agency;
• the legally required control analyses.

These expenses are included in the bills paid by the property owners receiving the service.

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Repairs and maintenance remain the responsibility of the EUCC

The agreement distinguishes these ordinary expenses from extraordinary costs.

Repairs, maintenance of the network, wells owned by the EUCC and other installations remain the responsibility of the EUCC, which the document identifies as the owner of these infrastructures.

Clause Seven confirms this division of responsibilities once again: implementation of the agreement by the Town Council does not release the EUCC from its obligations as owner of the drinking-water networks and installations.

The EUCC remains responsible, among other things, for daily chlorination checks and for the repair and maintenance of its installations.

In simple terms: the Town Council takes over the billing side, but the EUCC continues to bear a substantial part of the technical responsibility for the network.

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A subsidy mechanism is provided for if there is a surplus

After each billing period, the Town Council must deduct the ordinary water-service expenses from the income collected.

If the income exceeds those expenses, the agreement provides that the Town Council may use that positive balance to grant a subsidy towards repairs and maintenance of the network or other installations owned by the EUCC.

In no circumstances may that subsidy exceed the amount of the surplus.

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Water meters are to be progressively moved outside private plots

Both parties undertake to ask all users of the drinking-water service to place their meter outside their plot within three months.

The purpose is clearly to allow the Town Council to take readings directly without having to enter private property.

The agreement also sets out how water bills may be paid: either by direct debit through the Town Council or in accordance with the instructions issued by BASE, the revenue-management body of Tarragona Provincial Council.

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The Town Council also intervenes with Endesa

Clause Six provides that the Town Council will cooperate in the necessary dealings with FECSA ENDESA in order to adjust the contracted electricity supply for the wells to the level actually required for the proper operation of the drinking-water service.

The wording of the clause is significant: the agreement continues to refer to the provision of the drinking-water supply service by the EUCC Planes del Rei.

This passage confirms that the agreement does not amount to an immediate and complete takeover of the water service by the Town Council.

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Shared management rather than a complete transfer

The agreement of 10 September 2009 therefore needs to be read carefully.

It does represent an important development following the 2008 TSJC judgment: the Town Council now directly manages waste collection, waste billing and the collection of water bills.

At the same time, however, the EUCC remains the owner of the water network and retains significant technical responsibilities: meter readings in certain cases, chlorination, maintenance, repairs, wells and other installations.

The document therefore establishes not so much a complete transfer as a shared and transitional management arrangement, intended to operate until the urban development works have been completed and formally taken over by the Town Council.

In simple terms: the provisional situation does not disappear in 2009. Instead, it becomes formally organised by agreement.

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A further stage in a situation that was still not finally resolved

This document is particularly revealing of the situation in Planas del Rey at the end of the 2000s.

After decades of proceedings, the registration of certain assets in the Town Council’s name, the 2008 TSJC judgment and continuing debate over the respective responsibilities of the municipality and the EUCC, a practical arrangement was put in place to ensure the services continued to operate.

However, that arrangement still relied on a complex separation between municipal responsibility, ownership of the infrastructure, administrative management and technical maintenance.

The agreement therefore did not finally resolve the question of the formal takeover of Planas del Rey. Above all, it created an interim system allowing the Town Council and the EUCC to continue managing water and waste services while awaiting a broader urban-planning solution.

Jim – La Tribune de Planas

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Translation of the original agreement

2009-09-10-convenio-agua-mairie-peuman