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REPORTS: COLOMBIA |
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Crucial
Reservoir a Guerrilla Bastion
María
Isabel García*
BOGOTA, (Tierramérica) - Water
resource studies predict that the
Colombian capital could suffer severe
shortages by 2015 and point to the
Sumapaz high plains, or ”páramo”,
located in the eastern Andes range and
a stronghold of the FARC guerrillas,
as a strategic reservoir.
Birthplace of the rivers that flow to
the Orinoco basin in the east and
towards the Atlantic in the north, the
Sumapaz highland is one of the five
major reservoirs in the overall
Colombian water system.
A nature park that covers the plateau
extends over 145,000 hectares and
connects Bogotá with Meta and Huila
departments, in the south.
The concern about regaining control
over Sumapaz from the FARC
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia), which took up arms nearly
four decades ago, has simmered for
years, but has gained new momentum in
the context of the local elections
slated for Oct. 26.
Politicians are demanding the recovery
of control over Sumapaz, which they
say the FARC use to traffic people,
arms and drugs.
”If the war kills the plateau, the
water will disappear and Bogotá will
die of thirst,” says José Cuesta,
candidate of the Independent
Democratic Pole for city councillor in
the capital. As part of his campaign,
Cuesta camped on the plains of Sumapaz
on Oct. 3, Pan-American Water Day.
Former development minister and now
mayoral candidate Eduardo Pizano, of
the Bogotá Viva Movement, said that
if he wins he will close down the road
built in 2000 by the FARC as a
corridor between the Andean mountains
and the eastern plains, ”cultivating
it with 'frailejón',” a common
native plant.
As of 1999, the calculations of the
Bogotá water and sewage agency (EAAB)
and the Department of Environment
indicated that in 2015 the capital's
water demands would be 28.5 cubic
meters per second, which would require
taking approximately 18 cubic meters
per second from Sumapaz sources.
Other studies, including one called
”Agenda Bogotá”, conducted in the
1990s, also found that existing supply
capacity would be pushed to the limit
by 2015.
But Edgar Ortiz, of the EAAB, is now
working with other figures. Current
supplies cover 100 percent of the
city, with 13 to 15 cubic meters
pumped per second, and coverage is
assured until well after 2015, he told
Tierramérica.
Bogotá is home to seven million
people, and an average of 100,000
immigrants arrive yearly, water
services are billed to 1.4 million,
and losses through leaks and illegal
connections were reduced from 34.8 to
33.2 percent in the last year, Ortiz
said.
Official attribute the improvements in
water distribution to a change in
citizen behaviour.
”The more rational use of water by
the Bogotá residents and, in part, an
increase in water service rates and
reduced demand,” said Armando
Vargas, potable water director at the
Ministry of Environment and
Development.
Vargas does not share the apocalyptic
view of some politicians on the water
issue, though he does not rule out the
ecological devastation of the plateau
as a result of illicit plantations of
coca and poppy, the raw materials for
cocaine and heroin, respectively.
Military sources report that these
crops have begun to appear in the
Sumapaz region.
Some 14,500 hectares of forest have
been destroyed as a result of the
planting of drug crops in natural
parks, including Sumapaz, says the
Ministry of Defence.
In the plateau foothills that reach
the department of Meta is the town of
La Uribe, historic refuge of the FARC
top command, bombarded by the
Colombian army in 1990.
According to official sources, Sumapaz
marks the beginning of a strategic
corridor that extends through other
natural parks (La Macarena, Los
Picachos and Tinigua) and serves the
guerrillas as a transport route for
their hostages, chemical inputs for
drug processing, and arms and drugs
trafficking.
In an effort to counteract the FARC
influence, the government has deployed
a battalion in the Sumapaz plains.
Beginning in the mid-20th century,
technicians from the Bogotá aqueduct
had to meet with legendary guerrilla
Juan de la Cruz Varela to seek
permission for teams of experts to
enter the zone to conduct water source
inspections, Vargas said.
As early as 1933 a British mission
advised the city in carrying out
studies, which included the
possibility of building dams in the
Sumapaz area.
Vargas noted that back then the idea
was to take water from the Blanco and
Guayuriba Rivers, which begin in the
upper Sumapaz, but that this would
have involved the construction of
tunnels. Instead, the city experts
opted for the Tunjuelo River, in a
lower region, but sufficient for
supplying Bogotá to date.
Water flows from the river to La
Regadera reservoir and the Vitelma
water plant, in southern Bogotá,
operating since 1938.
”When they inaugurated those
projects they said the city would be
ensured water supplies until 2000,”
but that was not the case, said
Vargas, noting that studies and
long-term forecasts do not always
coincide with reality.
For now, plans for alternative sources
to the Tunjuelo have been put off, but
farther into the future it is thought
that new projects will be needed, such
as diverting the Blanco River, which
flows towards Meta department in the
east.
That would imply a mega-project right
through Sumapaz, whose natural wealth
in flora and fauna, a two-hour drive
from the country's biggest city, is a
true environmental treasure.
The páramo is a vital ecosystem for
the production of potable water,
through the cloud forests and
perpetual snow run-off, extreme
climate conditions and a unique
biodiversity.
Sumapaz ”continues to be a source
for future provisions, not only of
water for human consumption but also
for energy,” said Vargas, explaining
that the capital's energy agency is
already drawing up hydroelectric
plans.
* María Isabel García is an IPS
correspondent. Originally published
Oct. 11 by Latin American newspapers
that are part of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is a
specialised news service produced by
IPS with the backing of the United
Nations Development Programme and the
United Nations Environment Programme.
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