• AyA Says Garabito Water Plant On Track
Garabito is on schedule to get a new potable water treatment plant early next year, Costa Rica’s Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers, has announced.
Plans for the property where the plant is to be installed, as well as the distribution network, are “updated and ready,” according to a statement by the Instituto Costarricense de Aquaductos y Alcantarillados (or AyA).
The new treatment plant should be ready by February, the AyA said, and will be capable of pumping 60 liters per second during the rainy season and 40 liters per second in the dry season.
Noting that the dry season is also the tourism high season, the AyA assured that the 40 liters per second “is sufficient quantity to satisfy the community and tourism.”
“Since AyA assumed administration of the Jacó aqueduct one year ago, it has gone from a system of 3000 users to a system of 4000 users, a 30 per cent growth,” said AyA’s Executive President, Ricardo Sancho, in the statement.
“During all that time, we have concerned ourselves with substantially improving the continuity of potable water service, a situation that we will have assured by the beginning of 2008 with the new potable water plant,” he said.
In addition to the new plant, AyA will be investing $776,000 in Garabito’s water system, funds that come from a recent loan from the Central American Bank of Economic Integration (CABEI).
Jacó’s existing water treatment plant was shut down earlier this year when sediment levels in the water it processed got too high. Local officials with the municipal government and AyA blamed the problem on uncontrolled development in the mountains above the plant, and called for the area to be designated a protected area, a task that remains unfinished.
As a result, AyA was forced to pump water from several wells, raising operation costs, said Brian Arias, the manager of the Garabito AyA office. In addition, AyA began denying water availability permits to large construction projects as a result of the plant’s closure.
However, that plant has been back online since late September, Mr Arias said.
In a recent meeting between Mr Sancho, Garabito mayor Marvin Elizondo and other municipal officials, Mr Sancho said that while the new plant stands to improve potable water service in Jacó, “it does not solve the environmental depredation that exists in the high areas of the water basin.”
Mr Sancho also calls upon Garabito to approve its zoning plan and a master plan for government infrastructure in the community.
More: The Beach Times - October 19, 2007
