He drinking water of the Metropolitan Area of Montevideo has a greater brackish taste due to the decrease in the flow of the Paso Severino reservoir and the mixture from other supply sources, reported State Sanitary Works (OSE).
It is an OSE strategy, the Regulatory Unit for Energy and Water Services (Ursea), the Ministry of the Environment and has the approval of the Ministry of Public Health (MSP).
These entities signed a public document in which they assured that this drinking water “is suitable for consumption by the general population” despite higher proportions of salt, reported Prensa Latina.
However, they recommended that people with hypertension, kidney disease and salt-restricted diets “extreme blood pressure controls, do not neglect their medical controls and, if possible, drink bottled water”.
The document states that the monitoring of water quality will continue, while urging the population to rationalize its use and “refrain from using it for non-essential purposes.”
Increasing the level of salinity in the mix of drinking water that OSE distributes in Montevideo helps to extend the duration of the reserves in the face of the critical situation of scarcity caused by the drought.
This measure had already been taken by the board of the state company at the end of last month, when the proportion of sodium in the fluid increased from 200 milligrams per liter to 280 mg/L, while chloride went from 280 mg/L to 450 mg/L.
In this last increase in salinity, the Ministry of Public Health authorized the increase of 400 mg/L and 700 mg/L respectively.
Source: Ambito
