A hefty price tag awaits efforts to reverse Costa Rica water pollution.

On the heels of several national environmental issues and problems — eight popular Costa Rican beaches losing their blue flag certification, a forced closure of the Hotel Allegro Papagayo, the Palo Verde Biological Station’s dangerous ecological situation — reports claim that Costa Rica will need $500 million to treat the aguas negras, or sewage water that has been at the root of these problems.

As it stands, several parts of the country have no water filtration plants and no sewage systems. This means that waste and sewage runoff go wherever the forces of man or nature take them, many times into the ocean. Creating ways to clean Costa Rica’s waters is of the utmost importance, though Richard Sancho, executive president of Aya (Institute of Aqueducts and Sewer Systems), says that half of the necessary $500 million still has no funding source. A large part of what is already funded comes not from Costa Rican sources, but from the pockets of tourism developers and investors. To raise the additional $250 million, AyA will pursue more flexible financing and will allow involvement from their investors in the development of their treatment projects.

Providing potable water and sewage cleaning systems is not an easy task, and officials already know that the investment will be anything but small. In Guanacaste alone, Sancho estimates that $80 million will be necessary to clean up the area and provide treatment plans for the future. These plans will hopefully go a long way to purify the area, since Guanacaste is home to the Palo Verde Biological Station as well as several of the blacklisted beaches, including Papagayo, Ocotal, Manzanillo, and Tamarindo.

In  province alone, more than $30 million will be needed to provide and guarantee adequate treatment and purification of the area’s sewage. As of today, however, Limón mimics the rest of the country, and their untreated waters make their way to the area’s beaches, contaminating the waters and killing both land and marine life.

Unfortunately, too many national and international tourists have already witnessed the displeasure of walking along a beautiful beach, to be greeted by foul-smelling waters flowing onto the fine sand. This creates a huge contrast between expectations and reality, as Costa Rica’s biggest industry is tourism, and its international reputation is one of vast ecological resources and eco-friendly ways.

Almost any visitor or resident has heard the statistics: Costa Rica possesses only 0.03% of the world’s entire land mass, but is one of the planet’s 20 most diverse countries, home to 4% of the world’s total land species. In addition, we recently found out that with just 0.16% of the planet’s total ocean real estate, Costa Rica boasts 3.5% of total world marine life.

Word-of-mouth is a powerful force in the tourism industry, and Costa Rica has already suffered some criticism over the state of its national roads. As news spreads about popular tourist destinations, like Papagayo and Tamarindo, only time will tell if the country’s pollution and sewage situation will damage its most lucrative industry.

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Filed under: Costa Rica News on April 4th, 2008