MACOTERA Wastewater Treatment Plant, Santiago de la Puebla, Castilla y León

MACOTERA is an advanced wastewater treatment plant located in the municipality of Santiago de la Puebla, within the province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castilla y León, Spain. The plant serves a population of approximately 4,400 people, reflecting its role in managing domestic wastewater for a small rural community in the region. The plant employs advanced treatment processes, which go beyond secondary treatment to remove nutrients and other pollutants, ensuring a high quality of effluent. With a designed capacity of 4,400 cubic meters per day and a current discharge volume of 301.37 cubic meters per day, the plant operates well within its capacity, indicating room for future growth or seasonal variations. As a Spanish facility, it operates under the national transposition of the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC), which mandates appropriate treatment levels based on the size of the agglomeration and the sensitivity of the receiving environment. The treated effluent is discharged into local watercourses that ultimately drain into the Duero River basin, one of the major river systems in the Iberian Peninsula. The Duero River flows westward through Spain and Portugal, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at Porto. The advanced treatment provided by MACOTERA helps protect the ecological health of these downstream waters, supporting aquatic life and water quality in the region.

The MACOTERA plant discharges into local streams that are part of the Duero River basin, which drains a large area of northern Spain and Portugal before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The Duero basin supports diverse aquatic ecosystems and is important for agriculture and water supply. Advanced treatment at this plant helps reduce nutrient loading, protecting downstream water bodies from eutrophication and maintaining habitat quality for fish and other organisms.