A hundred thousand euros to restore the channels of Maretas de Montaña Blanca

The Consejo Insular de Aguas de Lanzarote has begun cleaning and restoring the edge channels of the historic Maretas de Montaña Blanca, in the municipality of Tías.

The work is budgeted at 100,910 euros and covers 730 metres of channelling built to collect rainwater.

The maretas are a hydraulic system built in the middle of the last century to capture and store rain.

Why it matters on this island

Lanzarote receives little more than a hundred millimetres of rain a year. Any system that holds water rather than letting it run to the sea was, for centuries, the difference between living on the island and leaving it. Restoring the maretas is not archaeology: it is maintaining something that can serve again.

Sources: Consejo Insular de Aguas de Lanzarote, Cabildo de Lanzarote.