Urak has analyzed the flow of 11,100 cubic meters per year from the Urkitza spring

The Basque Water Agency has made public the administrative concession file to extract 11,100 cubic meters per year from the Urkitza spring for domestic and livestock use. The applicant is the Antzuola City Council, and the file has the code A-G-2025-0019. The official notice was published in the Official Gazette of the Basque Country on October 27, 2026, under reference 2026/4520.

The reservoir and springs are part of the public domain, and their exploitation requires an administrative concession. The Basque Water Agency is the body that processes and resolves such files, and in this case, it has applied the standard environmental procedure: Article 109 of Royal Decree 849/1986, of April 11, which approves the Regulation of the Public Water Domain. Along with this, it cites Article 83 of Law 39/2015 —of October 1, on the common administrative procedure— to give citizens the opportunity to review the file and submit allegations.

What exploitation is proposed

The spring water would be collected in an existing catchment area and transported by gravity to a pumping tank located 30 meters away. From there, the water would be pumped to a second tank located in the Gorla area, at a distance of 1.5 kilometers, and from there it would be distributed both to the Gorla dining hall and to the land where the livestock farm is located.

The use is mixed: on one hand, domestic supply, and on the other, livestock. The notice does not specify how many head of cattle the mentioned livestock group has, nor the distribution of the annual volume for each use.

Main data of the file

• File: A-G-2025-0019.
• Applicant: Antzuola City Council.
• Location of activity: Antzuola and Bergara (Gipuzkoa).
• Spring: Urkitza, in the Irimo Goena neighborhood, in the municipality of Antzuola.
• Extraction point (UTM coordinates, ETRS89): X: 551.954, Y: 4.774.177.
• Annual volume: 11,100 m³/year.
• Purpose of the water: domestic use and livestock.

Twenty days to make allegations

Any interested party has twenty business days to submit allegations and observations, starting from the day following the publication of the notice. As established by Article 109 of the Regulation and Article 83 of Law 39/2015, any person who feels affected may examine the file and manifest what they deem appropriate. The direct method for this is what is provided for in said law; allegations will in no way be valid by telephone or orally.

The file will be available for viewing during that period at the Basque Water Agency, as well as in the Public Information section of the organization’s web portal. The publication itself provides the address: uragentzia.euskadi.eus. This channel is the main reference for consulting the complete file and downloading the documentation.

The notifications, on the other hand, were signed in Vitoria-Gasteiz on October 7, 2026, but the publication date is the reference for counting the period. According to the signature, the general director is represented by Anabel Montilla Olalde, as the person responsible for concessions, through the representation rules established in the Resolution of May 23, 2025.

Process for obtaining the concession

Obtaining a concession does not entail anything else: water continues to be part of the public domain, and the holder is required to fulfill the conditions of the concession, including volume, use, and environmental conditions. Therefore, this process is not a mere formality; allegations can have real weight in the conditions of the resolution.

In a project that affects Antzuola and Bergara, furthermore, linked to housing and livestock activities in the same valley, public information is the appropriate moment to verify the use of water resources in the mountain environment and, if necessary, to propose conditions. The annual volume is small, but it would be continuous and long-term, as concessions, according to the usual practice in these processes, are granted with a twenty-year validity.

The period for allegations is short, the same twenty days applied to other files, and although no extraordinary changes are foreseen until the beginning of December, it has already been counting since the end of October. Therefore, those who have notices or reasons to object must act immediately, as submitting the paper or using the electronic registry is mandatory.

The specific conditions of the concession are not yet public in this notice: only the intake point, volume, and purpose are specified. The publication, however, gives the citizen the opportunity to request information, and the Basque Water Agency assumes full power to carry out the procedure in this case.

Fuente: Boletín Oficial del País Vasco (BOPV), issue of October 27, 2026, Other official announcements section, 2026/4520.