08:07 PM
Although for the people of Bogotá, water rationing is a worrying development that has caught them off guard, perhaps it is a good idea for them to learn a trick or two from the community of Barbosa – north of the Aburrá Valley – which has already adjusted about 45 days with interruptions of more than 12 hours in its aqueduct service.
And as a result of the El Niño phenomenon, the flow of La López and El Viento, the two streams that supply water to the purification plant with which EPM supplies nearly 28,000 Barboseños who live in the urban area, causing them to run out of water every day between 2:00 pm and 3:00 am
Although at first the situation was quite traumatic, little by little the people of Barbos They have been “getting the hang of it” with this situation in one of the hottest territories in Aburrá.
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In this period of time, from the most humble resident to the highest official internalized this ritual of getting up in the early morning to collect the water that they should wisely use for cleaning, household chores and for food preparation.
“In the neighborhood I was left completely without water for about 15 days, 15 days without washing clothes and without being able to clean thoroughly. I had to buy jugs and ask the neighbors. But you get used to everything,” said a resident of the downtown area.
Even in the municipality, such sensitive infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, they have learned the lesson and continue working despite the drought.
“Here at the school we have some water tanks that we use to supply the nearly 2,000 students we have in four days. We recharge the tanks when it rains or in the early morning when the service returns. We only had to suspend classes once the water didn’t arrive on time. If we didn’t have the tanks, we would be ‘carried away’”commented John Posada, rector of the Luis Eduardo Pérez Educational Institution.
The “broken phone” with EPM
For the mayor of Barbosa, Juan David Rojas, the drought and rationing have caused a lot of damage in this municipality. which he classified as a privileged one in water resources with 17 streams that until recently prevented the population from being thirsty.
Rojas admitted that in his opinion the situation has been quite traumatic mainly due to the lack of coordination and communication with EPM in which even he has had to “get stuck” to obtain precise answers about the company’s actions.
“I have always asked EPM for coordination, that is, that they tell us how, when and in which specific sectors the water goes and how the community will be served. Because it is not just about notifying that the service has been interrupted when there is nothing more to do, the idea must first be to raise awareness and announce suspension times that are met, Because since there is no clarity, people do not know when they should leave the tap or valve open or closed and that has generated small floods but great waste. It has also caused consumption spikes because people do not know when the water will return.“, argument.
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Rojas’ words are shared by the community which puts the confusion with compliance with the suspensions as a major obstacle to rationing.
“Yesterday at 6:00 am, the water had not arrived and at noon it was already gone and they did not warn. But at 10:00 pm he returned. What a mess! What does one have to do? Well, when you see that it is shrinking, you start collecting,” said another neighbor.
Another of the president’s complaints is that the suspensions are generating implosions of old pipes that are more than 40 years old due to abrupt pressure changes, a fact that also causes leaks of the scarce water in Barbosa.
“Almost every day we send a person from Planning and another from Public Works to tour the neighborhoods and record those leaks through which the water also goes. Because if there are no timely reports, water is wasted for weeks. That is why we need EPM to help us by repairing these damages as soon as possible.“added the mayor.
Rojas, like everyone in Aburrá, fears that the dry season will stop becoming an anomaly and become something habitual, so he knows that his municipality cannot remain in perpetual rationing. For this reason, he indicated that both EPM and his administration are already working to prevent future drought with two actions: the expansion of the water master plan and the strengthening of a new source that supplies water to Barbosa.
“The master plan in its sixth stage will seek to expand and modernize the aqueduct and sewage network in a sector of the urban area near the hospital whose network is quite old. The Barbosa collection and supply plant will also be modernized. These tasks will be carried out by EPM and will be worth $40,000 million. They say they hope to have the solution by 2025,” explained the president.
At the same time, Rojas indicated that EPM has informed him that it is also working on a new water concession to capture the liquid from the Ovejas stream, which could supply Barbosa with 110 liters of water per second, almost double what El Viento and La López currently offer.
“This is a new collection that is already authorized by Corantioquia. EPM has been very limited by the legalization of lands where the pipe passes from the catchment. Even so, they indicated that 90% of the lands have already been legalized,” he said.
Finally, on the part of his administration, the mayor indicated that he is committed to strengthening the municipal aqueducts that are supplied from the remaining 15 streams –and from which water also comes out for some areas of the urban part – as well as the pedagogy that allows raising awareness and saving the liquid.
“We are also focused on looking at how to make investment and elevate our natural reserve areas from municipal to regional level. With this we hope that the Government will also help us acquire these properties and thus prevent there from being urban growth there,” he pointed out.
While all this is happening, in Barbosa the issue of water saving has already been gaining ground to prevent situations like those that affect the municipality today from being repeated in the future. “Just these days there was a man washing his car in the middle of the street with a hose, I told him that we had to save water. But he said that for that he paid for services, but the issue is not about money, but rather if we continue to waste water like this, then are we going to take money or what?”, reflected a resident of the municipality.
