Uruguay is living a drought that brought drinking water reserves in the country to critical levels, compromising State Sanitary Works (OSE) to take desperate measures to be able to supply the population, especially in the reservoirs of Canelón Grande, in the metropolitan area, and San Francisco in the city of minesin the department of lavalleja.
Rain is forecast for this Wednesday, but water officials are not completely calm, because the last times that rainfall was forecast was not enough to alleviate the water deficitthat Uruguay is suffering. Beyond OSE officials, the ministries of Atmosphere and of Defending They decided to intervene to help the departments that suffer the most from the drought.
The alert in Canelones
The Canelón Grande Reservoir, which supplies the department of Canelones together with three other sources (the Paso Severino dam, the Santa Lucía stream and a downstream transfer, which has contact with the Silver river), dried up. That was communicated by the mayor of Canelones, Yamandu Orsi on his Twitter.
“An image that brings us closer to the real dimension of the problem. Canelón Grande Reservoir, “La Represa”. We never saw anything like it. dried up And Paso Severino must have similar problems. Do we now understand why the Casupá reserve is important? Beyond future fund solutions “, said the mayor.
OSE’s director, Edgardo Ortuno, communicated last week to the press that Canelón Grande has less than a million cubic liters when it usually has 18 million. While Paso Severino currently has a flow between 20 and 25 million, when usually that reserve has 67 million cubic liters.
The city of Minas, in trouble
He San Francisco Reservoir He is also suffering the same as large cannelloni, is at water levels that had not been perceived for almost ninety years. A reservoir that is supposed to supply drinking water to more than 40,000 inhabitants of the city belonging to Lavalleja.
OSE decided last week to lower the pressure of the water supply for residents in the city of Minas, capital of the Lavalleja department, in the center-east of the country. The OSE director remarked that this decision is due to the fact that Lavalleja’s reserves would last until this month.
Against this, Ministry of Defence and OSE signed an agreement to guarantee support actions for the department that suffers the most from water deficit, especially in the city of Minas. From Defense they contributed four soldiers who have the necessary registration to use tanker trucks, which are necessary to carry out the withdrawal of water from the dam of the UTE Holiday Park because the water Valencia mines and those of other maneuvers had been retained there.
On the other hand, yesterday the Ministry of the Environment held meetings with private landowners to carry out the water pumping. This measure has the objective of feeding the Santa Lucía River through pumping in the channel, which implies the entry of OSE into private land to carry out interventions in the water intakes.
“They agreed with OSE on a joint procedure to ensure the entry of technicians to the property and thus carry out the task. OSE, for its part, will be responsible for the economic damages that these interventions may cause in the territory,” added the Environment statement published yesterday.
Source: Ambito
