Fresh Water In San José Could Be Scarce
In 2015
Thousands of residents of San José may have
to start rationing water come 2015 according
to a report by the Acueductos y
Alcantarillados (AyA) which since 2008 has
been been attempting to contract an expert
to determine locations where to collect
water.
The Spanish daily, La Nación, reports that
the greater metropolitan area will be
hardest affected by a water shortage that is
mainly due to numerous appeals that have
delayed necessary projects to guarantee the
supply of drinking water.
The delays in awarding the contract for the
study, which is required before any
construction of infrastructure can begin, is
jeopardizing the AyA's ability to deliver
fresh water.
Ricardo Sancho, president of the AyA, is
hopeful that the utility can award the study
contract in the coming weeks.
However, the clock is running out. The study
is expected to take about 20 months to
complet, and only then a master plan for the
supply and distribution of water in San José
can then be put into place.
According to Sancho, is the contract is
awarded next month (October), the earliest
the report could be available would be in
June 2011, then time is required to build
the aqueducts. Sancho said that if there are
no more appeals, crossing his fingers, fresh
water for San José will continue to flow.
The AyA chief explained that the Orosi
aqueduct that is currently supplying much of
the water to San José will not be able to
keep pace with the demand that is expected
by 2015.
Orosi went online some 22 years ago and
currently provides 2.000 litres of fresh
water per second, depending on the season,
of which some 1.800 litres per second make
it to San José, the rest used up by the
residents of Cartago.
The current aqueduct that feeds the
metropolitan area has a capacity of 1.1
million residents. The AyA projects the
growth to be by 400.000 by 2015.
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