The climate crisis, the intense summer and the El Niño Phenomenon are taking their toll on Santa Marta, however, thanks to the declaration of public calamity by the district, a contingency plan and a shock plan were implemented.
BY
EDGAR
TATIS WAR
Santa Marta is a city that lacks the precious liquid and the situation is worsening due to the decrease in the intake provided by the rivers, which remain minimal, but the most worrying thing is that 60% of the water consumed registers unquantified losses.
This was revealed by the manager of Essmar ESP Jorge López Echeverry, who was categorical in stating that the company is supplying barely 380 liters per second through the networks, while several communities are served with tank trucks.
He said that the climate crisis, the intense summer and the El Niño Phenomenon are taking their toll on Santa Marta, other cities and worldwide; however, thanks to the declaration of public calamity by the district, a contingency plan was implemented and a crash plan.
Faced with the protests of recent days in some sectors of the city, the manager of Essmar said that the roads do not in fact contribute to the solution, and that they have always been willing to dialogue with the leaders, councilors and representatives of the communities. “On our line 116 we receive many requests and we are responding in their respective order with more company tank trucks. It is important to understand and keep in mind that our slogan is: water for everyone but not for everything.”
He commented that it is valuable to leave in the imagination of each person that the company charges $2,500 per cubic meter and that the lowest strata benefit from a subsidy provided by the district government thanks to a Council Agreement where percentages like this were established: stratum one 70%, stratum 2 40% and stratum three 15%.
“Santa Marta is a city with a great real estate future, but this requires guaranteeing the provision of basic public services. Hence the request to the Minister of Housing at the water sector tables where we have assisted and supported the idea of an Aqueduct Master Plan and another Sewer Plan with a vision of the future that are integrated into the needs we have. Currently there are applications for more than 116 thousand housing units that are planned to be built in the city and that confirms the ‘boom’ of the building sector,” said López Echeverry.
In dialogue with RADIOHOY.COM, the manager of Essmar ESP revealed the situation in which the company finds itself, arguing that the measurement system does not have full coverage and that has led them to make estimated charges because the law prevents giving away the service. “I think it is very important that we move from the problem to the solution and we are on that path thanks to a team of well-qualified human talent that advances in a sectorization system,” he noted.
When referring to the number of users, López Echeverry indicated that the statistics establish that there are about 172 thousand of which only 120 thousand are billed since there are more than 50 thousand properties outside the database. If each household has 4 members and we multiply it by 50 thousand, we would be talking about 200,000 people who use water, but do not pay for it.
“As a defender of the company we are in the task of updating the registry of users because we have unaccounted water close to 60%, that means that of the 100 liters that we treat we know where 40 liters go while the other 60 we do not know. Where are they going and that is very serious. I am of the opinion that we should study this to improve it, but we do not have an exact identification of that water that can leak due to leaks or illegal connections,” López pointed out.
id: 87
