More Water Outages to Come for Certain San Jose Neighborhoods Due to Repairs.

AyA, the government authority in charge of the Costa Rican water system, turned off water to several San José locations yesterday, leaving 75,000 people in Curridabat, Montes de Oca, Moravia, Coicoechea, Coronado and La Unión (Cartago) without water. AyA announced that there will be at least three more similar water outages in October, due to required pipe maintenance. The good news: the Interamerican Development Bank has elected to help Costa Rica bring its aqueduct and water systems up to par, effecting changes that will benefit at least 800,000 consumers.

On October 1, the Casa Presidencial agreed upon a program called “Potable Water and Treatment Development Program on a Sub-National Level between the financial entity” (stay tuned for the acronym they will surely create). Under the new program, AyA (the Institute of Aqueducts and Sewer Systems) and the Institute of Municipal Promotion (IFAM) will work with the 30 municipality aqueduct administrators to improve all concerned systems.

A total of $3 million will be invested in the new plans, and will be destined for planning various jobs in Costa Rica over the next 20 years, discovering necessary repairs and improvements and strengthening piping already in-place. All cantons will also work to improve their potable water quality which, though drinkable, may not be the cleanest or healthiest possible. Some of the receiving communities are Heredia’s Barva, Santo Domingo, Santa Bárbara, Belén, and Flores; Guanacaste’s Nandayure and Abangares; and Puntarenas, Montes de Oro, Cartago and Naranjo.

The actual pipe and water system construction will be done by BID, with the technical collaboration of IFAM and AyA, who will continue supporting the program’s development. In addition to repairs and improvements, AyA and IFAM would like to help the municipalities and local communities to become more self-sufficient, improving the management of their aqueducts and expanding their systems as needed. “En the country there continue to be breaches in quality of potable water service and the municipalities confront historic problems that we must overcome so as not to [deny] users a public service,” an AyA higher-up explained.

For the time being, users will have to muddle through, as their public service will be denied at times. AyA will continue to do repairs on old piping, and outages are to be expected. Though no dates have yet to be set, an AyA representative noted that it could be as soon as Saturday, October 4 - this outage will not affect those that were without water on October 1, instead falling on approximately 35,000 residents in San José’s Calle Siles, Barrio Pinto, Barrio Roosevelt, Los Yoses, Barrio Dent, Vargas Araya, Monterrey, Cedros, Sabanilla, Betania, Barrio Escalante, Alta Monte and Granadilla Norte.

To alleviate the inconvenience caused by such outages, AyA will attempt to notify all affected with plenty of advanced warning. In most cases, the biggest Costa Rica newspapers will carry outage information. La Nación is particularly responsible about this information. Expect water to be out for a 6-8 hours at a time, and remember that water will return within a few hours of its return time - if you live higher up, water takes time to climb to altitude.

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Filed under: Costa Rica News on October 3rd, 2008