After a January that was the driest in recent years, and given the scarcity of water reserves in different supply areas —with a forecast of between ten days and two weeks of drinking water in, for example, Gold Coastif it does not rain—, the need to address the problem of water deficit becomes urgent.
Priority works for the FA
According to Ortuño, the most important work that the government should undertake is the dam on the Casupá stream which, according to the calculations of the Frente Amplista, would have contributed some 118 million cubic meters of water to the metropolitan area —strongly affected by the lack of water. However, the project is ready to be tendered from 2020, without further news in this regard.
Another necessary dam is the one that would be located on the Solis Chico Streamwhich would serve to supply the entire coast of Canelones, also hit hard by the drought.
For the director of the FA, the investment necessary for these urgent works does not reach the 150 million dollars. Money that, according to Ortuño, could be easily obtained from the “savings” that OSE could generate if it took over the development of the Arazatí project, also known as the Neptuno project, to make drinking water from the Silver river.
Although the Executive Power wants to put the initiative under private management, the opposition called for eliminating the participation of this type of capital in the project to bet on “concrete and proven responses” and, thus, prevent the water deficit from happening again.
Source: Ambito
