Despite the heavy rainfall that began the rainy season, the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers (AyA) maintains water cuts of up to eight hours in 15 districts of Josefina cantons. Their claim is that it does not rain in the places required to recharge the water treatment plant from which these communities are fed.
The situation contrasts with the forecasts of Juan Manuel Quesada Espinoza, president of AyA, who during the press conference he gave on April 23 stated that the AyA systems were going to stabilize in supply at the end of May, with the start of the Rainy season.
During that activity, they also reported that 26 million liters of water had been incorporated from 10 additional sources between November 2023 and April 2024 and that they had replaced a large number of kilometers of pipes, more than 150,000 meters and installed 73 tanks in variety of communities in the country.
Lack of rain affects AyA supply
The hierarchy’s predictions, however, were not fulfilled. For this June 17, for example, the AyA announced rationing from 8 am to 2 pm or 4 pm in districts such as San Ignacio and Guaitil (Acosta canton), Pozos and Santa Ana (Santa Ana), San Rafael and San Antonio ( Escazú), San Felipe (Alajuelita), Granadilla and Sánchez (Curridabat), Mata de Plátano (Goicoechea), Sabanilla, San Rafael and San Pedro (Montes de Oca) and also in the district of Daniel Flores in Pérez Zeledón.
This regime applies Monday, Wednesday and Friday because, in the case of Desamparados, rationing is Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
“Suspension of the drinking water service to transfer drinking water to the most affected sectors,” reads the message sent to those affected on the AyA page.
The nation He asked the company what this situation was due to, now that the rainy season has entered and when it expects the supply to return to normal. Without indicating when the cuts will end, the Institute attributed the measure to the lack of rain to feed one of its water treatment plants.
READ MORE: ‘AyA has lost its way,’ says Aresep in response to claims from the water supplier company
Alejandro Calderón Acuña, deputy systems manager of the Greater Metropolitan Area of AyA, said that there have been “good downpours” but the drops do not fall where the Institute needs them. According to his explanation, the rainwater in the metropolitan area is lost because the rainfall has not occurred in the high areas of San José.
He cited the case of Coronado, Llano Grande de Cartago and the Tiribí River basin. As long as it does not rain there, according to its exposure, the water sources will remain unrecovered and that affects the AyA water treatment plant in Tres Ríos de La Unión, on which the GAM depends.
“It turns out that the Tiribí River went from delivering 400 liters of water per second last year at this same time, to 150 liters per second today. Unfortunately, the Tres Ríos system is the heart of the GAM,” he insisted.
On June 8, a strong storm surprised the Carthaginians and caused flooding and significant damage to homes, the Max Peralta hospital and the Fello Meza stadium.
(Rafael Pacheco Granados)
Other causes of AyA rationing
Marco Cordero Arce, Water Mayor of the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep) stated that rationing problems like this could be due to poor investment management by AyA.
Of every 100 liters that the Institute processes, 60 are lost because they are not billed due to leaks due to poor infrastructure or illegal intakes. However, this does not seem to encourage the Institute to prevent that 60% loss in water production because its production costs are covered by current rates.
“Users are charged for their consumption and also for what they lose because everything is transferred to the rates. The provider thus has no incentive to make efforts to correct, because he always recovers his production costs at 100%,” he explained.
For example, he cited that since 2016, the Institute has not presented a single investment project to incorporate into the rates. Any work that he carried out in the last eight years remains without being transferred to the rates and that, in his opinion, takes away flexibility and management capacity from AyA.
And why does this happen? According to the mayor, the AyA is unable to justify how a project budgeted at $3 million ended up at $8 million due to a complete absence of information and traceability in details, such as people responsible for the work, signatures or other authorizations to increase costs or, even information on how it became so expensive over time.
Detail of the AyA water treatment plant in La Unión de Cartago, on which the GAM depends, according to the entity. (Rafael Pacheco Granados)
