Agricultural water
Electricity and water were deal-breakers for many houses at the time. Britons just expected that water would come out of taps and that there would be somewhere to plug in the fridge and the telly. One saving grace for many of these houses was that they had "agricultural water" – water designed for watering crops rather than drinking, but which had been extended to provide water for the homesteads. If there was no electricity supply, then the options were to make Iberdrola even richer with inevitably enormous installation costs, or to buy some biggish, noisy generator. Solar power and the like were still very much in their infancy at the time.
People who have agricultural water and use it as the principal supply in their homes nearly always have separate arrangements for sweet water to be delivered to separate storage tanks. The agricultural water is "purified", but agricultural water purification is much less stringent than drinking water purification. The treatment focuses on removing large particles, sediment, and some pathogens through basic filtration using sand and gravel filters, and maybe some disinfection with chlorine or UV. The water is generally not monitored to the same standards as drinking water and is not normally guaranteed safe for human consumption without additional treatment. The purpose is to protect crops and prevent soil contamination, not to protect human health, so the water can still contain bacteria, viruses, minerals, or chemicals that would be unacceptable in drinking water. Agricultural water is usually fine for laundry and flushing toilets, and small quantities can be treated so it can be used for cooking and making tea.
The big complaint that I've heard about agricultural water is that it simply stops flowing from time to time. Unlike town water – the clean, filtered stuff monitored for quality by "the authorities" – agricultural water is not a "prime" service. If there's no water for the peaches or olives a couple of days in a row, it's unlikely the crop will be lost, but for most households, having water is an absolute essential and a right royal pain in the bottom when it's not on tap.
That period when we were looking at houses is probably the last time I ever wondered about agricultural water, except when, along with our next-door-but-one neighbours, we wondered if we could contract it as cheap water to fill swimming pools and to water our gardens. That would be around 2006, when we asked the local agricultural water supplier about connecting our properties. They gave us short shrift and told us they couldn't take on any extra customers – their capacity was at full stretch. It's been the same ever since, so far as I know.
Then, the other day, the whole subject popped up again on the local community Facebook pages. Someone was asking about contacting the local agricultural water supplier, SAT Aguas de Pinoso, because he had a problem. SAT wasn't answering the phone, and their offices were locked up. The Facebook questioner asked if he could just contact the SAT office in Úbeda instead. Úbeda is a small village that "belongs" to Pinoso. Despite spending 21 years here, I had never even heard of the Úbeda SAT. It made me realise that despite seeing SAT vans and hydrants all the time, I actually knew next to nothing about the organisation or how it worked.
As it turns out, SAT stands for Sociedad Agraria de Transformación, or Agricultural Transformation Society. They are a uniquely Spanish legal entity created for rural communities, owned and run by their members, who are typically local farmers and landowners. A SAT sits somewhere between a private company and a traditional cooperative; it is essentially a civil society with an economic and social purpose focused on agriculture, livestock, and land management.
While our local SAT Aguas de Pinoso was set up specifically to manage water capture, purification, and distribution, SATs across Spain can take many different forms. Their origins actually go back to a post-Civil War initiative in the 1940s, though they were modernised by new legislation in 1981. Generally, they are designed to help rural communities handle the production and marketing of their goods collectively – whether that means turning grapes into wine, pressing olives into oil, or packaging roasted almonds to secure better market prices. They also allow farmers to pool their resources to buy expensive machinery, share transport costs, or invest in local development. Today, you find them all over rural Spain, particularly in regions like Andalucía, Murcia, and Valencia, managing everything from citrus fruit cooperatives to rural tourism.
Because they are run by the people who use them, a SAT is typically governed by a Junta Rectora (a board of directors) elected by the members. However, unlike standard cooperatives which operate on a "one member, one vote" system, voting power in a SAT is proportional to the capital each member has invested. Although each SAT is different, it's common to stipulate that no single person can own more than 25%. They are strict legal entities, too, and must be registered in their autonomous community's official SAT Register.
Our local SAT Aguas de Pinoso is a classic example of this model. Founded on 1 January 1981, its main job is strictly managing water for local landowners. It has real teeth when things get difficult. In times of drought, the board can vote to ration water strictly. In April 2023, the Junta Rectora voted to reduce members' allocations from 200 to 140 cubic metres per hectare per month, with the restrictions taking effect from May because of the worsening drought.
How they actually decide who gets what comes down to a mix of land registry and financial investment. When a SAT is formed, water rights aren't allocated by ancient medieval decrees or royal handshakes; instead, they are tied to participaciones (shares) bought by the socios. In a water-focused SAT like Pinoso, you buy shares based on the number of hectares you own and the specific water needs of your crops – whether you’re growing thirsty stone fruits or hardy old olives. These shares dictate your maximum monthly allowance. However, because they are a modern legal entity, these water rights aren't permanently locked to the soil. If a local farmer retires, pulls up their vines, or leaves a plot fallow, the farmer can rent or sell their acciones de agua (water shares) to a neighbour whose crops are gasping. It’s an internal, heavily regulated market managed in the SAT offices, ensuring that while the total volume drawn from the local aquifers remains strictly capped, the water itself can be traded and moved to wherever the dirt is driest.
The SAT over in Úbeda — the one mentioned on Facebook — is called the Santa Bárbara SAT. Formed in 1996, it is a completely separate legal entity focused purely on the farmers in the immediate vicinity of Úbeda. There is no corporate connection or direct ownership between the Pinoso and Úbeda SATs; they are run by different sets of socios (members) and draw from different water sources.
Where they do meet, however, is further up the political ladder. Both organisations have to answer to the same overarching river basin authority, the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura. To make matters more complicated, some of the underground aquifers around Pinoso are shared with a completely different authority, the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar. Because nature doesn't respect municipal boundaries, our local SAT and the town hall frequently have to team up to lobby both basin authorities just to protect our local supply. It's a complex, bureaucratic web, but it's the only thing keeping the water flowing through the local fields – and occasionally, out of a few unsuspecting incomer taps.
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