La Ávila, who cannot drink tap water due to aquifer contamination: “The situation will worsen because of macro farms.”

The bottles that have been supplying drinking water to Bernuy-Zapardiel (Ávila, population 90) for 15 years are still useful even when empty: they are refilled with the undrinkable liquid that comes out of the tap and end up on doorsteps to prevent dogs from urinating on them. Residents have become accustomed to the truck that delivers pallets of bottles every 15 days because the supply is contaminated with nitrates and arsenic, whose concentration in the aquifers of Castile and León often exceeds a critical percentage. A study by the National Drinking Water Information System, published by the Ministry of Health, indicates that in 2024 there were 195 villages affected, reaching 33,168 inhabitants. Neighborhood platforms and environmentalists warn that, in addition to pesticides and fertilizers, the proliferation of macro pig farms and biogas plants and their associated slurry can exacerbate the problem. It smells bad. The wind carries the stench from nearby pig farms through the empty streets of Bernuy, where there are only a few souls in the bar. The bartender, Luis Encinas, 52, says that even before the current levels were exceeded, “the water tasted like chlorine, which was awful.” His regular customer Miguel Ángel González, 50, cuts tortilla and chorizo with a knife and mentions the arsenic—“we've gotten used to it”—before heading to his garage, where countless bottles await their turn. “There are five of us, and we drink without meaning to.” With wine, he jokes, there's no mistake. The plague intensifies near the Lavajuelo lagoon, between the towns of Arévalo (8,200 inhabitants) and Aldeaseca (210), in the north of the province, where winter rains have revived a pond that had once been drained to gain agricultural land. Ornithologist Luis Martín peers through his telescope with a wrinkled nose and points to one of the still small pig farms, a preview of what is to come when the three biogas plant projects currently underway are completed. Biogas is a green energy source produced from the treatment of slurry and organic waste or animal carcasses. Few jobs, a lot of potential environmental impact, summarizes Martín, annoyed by the location of these facilities: a hill whose waters flow into that lagoon, where rainfall, which is also contaminated, ends up in the underground aquifers. Manuel Iglesias, a geologist from the University of Salamanca, says that macro-farms “are a problem because of the excess waste, the aquifers are difficult and the Duero aquifer has more permeable and less permeable areas,” so depending on where the slurry ends up, it can cause more or less damage to these underground reservoirs. “Pig manure has always been spread on farmland, but it depends on how shallow the aquifers are and whether there are rivers. The key is control,” he summarizes. “NoMetaNo” (Don't do it) reads graffiti on the wall of an adjacent factory, as many associations in the community protest against the 95 facilities already in the pipeline and some five million pigs, twice the number of people, with dozens of macro farms in the pipeline. “The biomethane plants are going to centralize all the shit and pollute with thousands of trucks that will bring slurry from other places,” Martín criticizes. His fellow activist Agustín Canales, 57, laments that in Arévalo, where water sometimes exceeds the acceptable limit of 50 milligrams per liter, many people buy bottled water because they don't trust it. “There are town councils that preserve their dignity and defend their residents, and others that sell out and turn against us, they are fellow party members,” he reproaches. His municipality, governed by the PP, like the regional government, passed a motion against these projects, although these activists fear that it will give in because they were kicked out of the last plenary session. “When we get to that river, we'll cross that bridge,” said Mayor Vidal Galicia, who is now reminded of the phrase by the group's protest posters, stuck over advertisements for bullfighting events, with illustrations of polluted rivers and dead fish. Aurora Vilarino, coordinator of Stop Biogás España, Stop Biogás Castilla y León, and president of the Milagros neighborhood association (Burgos, population 420), sums it up this way: "These projects are a spiral where a few win and the rest of us lose our quality of life and sustainable future. Politicians must defend our territory, not sell it. We are people living in territory, not territory.“ Koldo Hernández, water coordinator for Ecologistas en Acción, argues that ”it is a recurring problem that affects the environment, health, and quality of life. It is urgent to reduce pollution to prevent the solution from being resignation or the burden falling on the water treatment systems of small municipalities without resources." Blanca Alonso, a 59-year-old activist from Arévalo, celebrates the success of the protests, with 4,300 signatures against biogas and demonstrations involving 800 people, but regrets that business owners and hoteliers, despite the fact that the combination of pigs and biomethane does not benefit them, “are afraid to take a stand.” “We are going to file an administrative appeal to try to stop the licenses,” she adds. Her colleague Sara Martín, 54, highlights the eye infections that she and the children of some friends, with whom they had not discussed the issue until the same thing happened to them, suffered as a result of the shower water: “The doctor prescribed eye drops and acknowledged that it could be the cause. I've been cooking with bottled water for 20 years, spending €400 a year, because the pipes in my new house turned color, and that's what we drink.” The group is calling for action: “Some people say, 'Why are you taking action if it's already done? So they can see that we don't agree.”