– The water has a disgusting salty taste, says Raúl Viñas, who lives in the capital Montevideo. Three years of drought have left drinking water supplies, which ensure the metropolitan area with drinking water, brown. It affects around 2.8 million inhabitants. – We no longer have potable tap water. You can of course drink it, or petrol for that matter, but it won’t be good for you, says Viñas, and continues: – Everyone is talking about the water crisis. On the streets you see people with six liter water bottles in each hand. It has become a normal view, he says. The country is suffering from the worst drought in 70 years, national media reports. This has become a common sight in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. The authorities are subsidizing two liters of bottled water per low-income resident per day due to the drought. In addition, VAT has been removed for those who cannot afford to buy their own water. The picture is from the city in July this year. Photo: Dante Fernandez / AFP People surprised by salty taste To avoid running out of water completely, the country’s state-owned water company “Obras Sanitarias del Estado” (OSE) has gradually mixed the water with brackish water, a mixture of fresh water and salt water. The brackish water comes from the Río de la Plata river bay, which borders Argentina. – People noticed the salty taste of the water at the beginning of May, says Viñas, who works as a volunteer in the environmental protection group “For a sustainable Uruguay”. Raúl Viñas is disappointed with the way the authorities have handled the water crisis. He teaches at the “Universidad de Empresa” in Uruguay and is part of the environmental protection movement “For a sustainable Uruguay”. Photo: Private – But only after several articles were made about this in the press, the water company OSE came out and explained that they had mixed the water. In May, it was measured that the tap water had such high levels of salt and chlorine that it was at the upper limit of what the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends. But today the situation is worse. The levels of salt and chlorine are twice as high as in May, The Guardian reports. Nevertheless, the authorities believe that the water is not dangerous to drink for most people. Angry protesters hit empty plastic bottles and demand clean drinking water in Montevideo on May 31 this year. More than half of Uruguay’s 3.5 million inhabitants are without clean tap water at home. Photo: Matilde Campodonico / AP Some vulnerable groups, such as infants, pregnant women and people with high blood pressure, have been warned against drinking the water. Others, who should be careful with their salt intake, should check their levels with a doctor often, the authorities advise. – The water company has a communication problem. The fact that they did not inform us of this sooner led to great distrust among the population. This could have been avoided, says Viñas, who teaches agricultural science at the University of Commerce (UDE) in Montevideo. By then, many people had already had their household appliances destroyed as a result of the use of salt water in their taps, he says. Six out of ten companies in the country have had production problems because they have used fresh water with too high a salt content, reports newspaper El Observador. The Santa Lucia River has dried up in the province of Florida in Uruguay. A family walked on what was once a riverbed on the 4th of July this year. Photo: Matilde Campodonico / AP Mixing the water since February The water company OSE started mixing the fresh water with brackish water in February, according to general manager Arturo Castagnino. – Had we not done this, we would have run out of water in February, Castagnino said in an interview with the program Arriba Gente on the TV channel Canal 10 in May. In the same month, the company must have informed the Ministry of Health about the situation, Arturo Castagnino continued. The alternative would have been to cut the water supply, which would have led to a “microbiological risk”, the OSE leader said. On April 26, a much larger portion of brackish water from the river was mixed into the tap water, according to OSE president Raúl Montero. That’s what CNN writes. Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou maintains that the tap water is harmless for large parts of the population. He has received criticism for not having handled the water crisis better. Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters In Uruguay, the right to clean drinking water has been enshrined in the constitution since 2004. – We will not cut the water. Therefore, the consequence may be that the water quality becomes worse, said President Luis Lacalle Pou after an emergency meeting of the government on 19 June this year. His government has had to endure harsh criticism for reacting too slowly to the water crisis. The former president from 2010 to 2015, José Mujica, bluntly said that “we have slept through the hour” when asked if his government could have done things differently. Uruguay is considered a prosperous country in the Latin American context. The country has historically thought of itself as a country with good sources of fresh water. Here is the Palace of Salvo in the center of Montevideo. Photo: AFP Cursed at Finnish paper mill Despite running out of drinking water, the Finnish cellulose mill giant UPM-Kymmene, formerly “United Paper Mills”, uses enormous amounts of fresh water every day. Admittedly, from a different water source than the citizens of Montevideo. “It’s not about drought, it’s about looting,” said several demonstrators who took to the streets when the water crisis was a fact in the country. A boy holds a sign that says “Out with UPM”, which is the Finnish cellulose giant that has several large paper mills in Uruguay. “Water is life, don’t sell it” and “Drinking water is running out” is the message from protesters behind, May 31, 2023 in Montevideo. Photo: Matilde Campodonico / AP – UPM’s cellulose factory uses water from the Río Negro river. In one day, they use as much water, to mix out chemical waste from the factory that is returned to the river, as the entire water consumption of Montevideo for two weeks, says Raúl Viñas. The protesters believe that the distribution of the fresh water is completely wrong. UPM opened the world’s largest wood pulp factory in the small town of Paso de los Toros in June, at the same time as Uruguay is facing its worst drought in 44 years. In addition, UPM also has a paper mill in Fray Benots, on the border with Argentina. Together, the two factories produce 3.4 million tonnes of eucalyptus pulp per year, according to the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. The Finnish-owned forest industry giant UPM-Kymmene recently opened a new cellulose factory in Uruguay. The factories use enormous amounts of fresh water when converting eucalyptus trees into paper products. Photo: Matilde Campodonico / AP Was informed during the water crisis in Cape Town Montevideo is not the only city that has been affected by drought. In January 2008, the big city of Cape Town was about to run out of water. The authorities then introduced strict restrictions and warned that the water supply would be completely cut off. This is how Cape Town was in danger of becoming the world’s first major city to run out of water. But the so-called “zero day”, when the tap water would have disappeared, was canceled at the last minute. The situation in Uruguay has been completely different. – Here we were not informed about the problem until the water level was down to two percent, says Raúl Viñas. Media in Uruguay describe the drought in the south of the country as the worst in 70 years. The Paso Severino magazine has already dried up. Photo: Matilde Campodonico / AP The authorities are now substituting bottled water so that each person in low-income groups can get two liters per day. In addition, a 14 kilometer long pipe is being built, which will supply the Santa Lucía Basin with water from the San José River. A number of emergency measures have also been initiated in an attempt to find new water sources in the capital area, including digging new wells. The work is the biggest infrastructure work on Montevideo’s water supply since the 1980s. Uruguay’s neighboring country Argentina has also been through a devastating drought this summer, which corresponds to the winter months in Europe. Large crops have been destroyed.
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Water crisis in Uruguay after water reserves dried up – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
