The Chilean government said Friday the 27 of August that significant reconstruction progress has been made in the six months since a devastating earthquake that left nearly 500 dead and caused some $30 billion in damage.
President Sebastian Piñera’s administration, which took office two weeks after the Feb. 27 quake struck just off the coast of central Chile, praised advances in education, health, public infrastructure, housing, employment and industry. Continue reading
Posted in Chile, Emergencies, Water supply
Tagged drinking water, water supply charges
Annual water theft in Chile’s metropolitan region equals the consumption of 33,000 families. Over 8Mm3 of water are stolen in the region every year by people tampering with water meters. Criminal groups offer to tamper with meters for about 15,000 pesos (US$30).
Read full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 12 Feb 2010
Posted in Chile, Transparency, Water distribution
Tagged corruption, urban water supply, water metering, water theft
Usually you read that water utilities in Latin America want to increase rates to be able to invest in improved services or reduce consumption in the wake of looming shortages (see examples from Mexico and Colombia). Not so in Chile. The country’s award-winning sanitation service authority SISS announced that potable water and sewage service rates would decrease by an average of 2.8% as of 15 January 2010. Economic index values are the principal cause for the rate reduction, according to SISS.
Read the full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 12 Jan 2010
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will due to sign a bill to guarantee water access rights to small communities by the end of 2009, an official from the presidential office said. The lower house issued a unanimous final approval of the bill on 15 December 2009. The bill preserves water access rights for small farmers, indigenous communities, and rural potable water systems between regions XV and VI.
Read the full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 16 Dec 2009
Posted in Chile, Policy & legislation, Water resources management
Tagged right to water, rural water supply
For the first time since the government of Chile recognized the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous landowners, a high court has invoked it. After 14 years of litigation, a group of Aymara Indians in Chusmiza-Usmagama, Tarapaca Region, won their battle to bar a water-bottling firm from using their groundwater. A lawsuit was brought against Agua Mineral Chusmiza by native attorneys, Chile’s Directorate General of Waters, and the National Indigenous Development Board (CONADI) in the 1990s, but got nowhere under Chile’s 1981 Water Code, a relic of the Pinochet dictatorship. Luis Carvajal, head of the Aymara community, called the High Court’s ruling “an enormous precedent for other communities,” while Nancy Yanez, a lawyer for the Observatorio Ciudadano and an expert on indigenous water rights, hailed it as “a great triumph.”
[Summary by Louise Shaler, SAHRA News Watch]
Source: Antonio Valencia, La Nacion [in Spanish], 27 Nov 2009
Posted in Chile, Policy & legislation, Water resources management
Tagged indigenous peoples, water rights
Chile’s water and sanitation service authority SISS (Superintendencia de Servicios Sanitarios) has received an award from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for the success of its reforms and water management program, which have been implemented over the last decade.
The award was delivered by IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno and the president of the Femsa foundation, José Antonio Fernández to SISS head Magaly Espinosa in Mexico city on November 16, during the IWA Development Congress.
Related web site: Chile – Superintendencia de Servicios Sanitarios
Read the full article in a href=”http://www.bnamericas.com/content_print.jsp?id=498532&idioma=I§or=4&type=NEWS”>BNamericas.com [subscription site], 18 Nov 2009
Members of Chile’s lower chamber of congress will discuss a bill to concession rural potable water and sanitation services in the second week of November 2009, an official from the house’s public works committee told BNamericas.
The senate approved the bill unanimously in October 2009 and it has been classified as “extremely urgent” due to its importance for the sector, the official added.
The new law includes the creation of a national rural sanitation department that will operate within the waterworks division of the public works ministry (MOP).
The new authority will award the operation and maintenance of rural sanitation services to existing cooperatives, to newly created ones and also to sanitation companies.
“Cooperatives will operate as concessionaires because they will be given the right to manage these services and administer revenues over a period of time,” the official said.
When the concession period is over, the cooperative in charge of services will have certain advantages if it wants to continue but there is no guarantee it will be awarded the concession again, the official added.
The new rural sanitation department will work with regional governments to draw up plans and programs to expand services; create a registry of and classify rural water operators; and supervise these entities to guarantee services. The authority will also decide policies and administer technical and financial support from national government on a case-by-case basis.
Contracts will be granted for 30 years, during which the awardee will provide potable water and sewage services, sewage collection services and wastewater treatment in some cases, according to the bill.
Service rates will be set for five-year periods by the national sanitation services authority SISS, which also establishes the rates for urban water utilities.
Under Chile’s current framework, many entities are involved in rural sanitation, which makes it difficult to monitor the services provided by cooperatives and solve problems efficiently.
In 1964 only 6% of Chile’s rural population had access to potable water. Nowadays, coverage is at 98%, serving a population of over 1.5mn inhabitants. The quality of these services, however, differs among communities.
The increase in rural potable water coverage is mainly due to a US$400mn investment carried out by the state from 1994-2005.
Source: Eva Medalla, BNamericas.com [subscription site], 04 Nov 2009
A group of Chilean senators, led by Ricardo Núñez of the socialist party, has presented a bill to eliminate full and perpetual ownership of water concessions and mining resources, as well as special contracts for hydrocarbons, among others.
The bill proposes a 30-year limit on concessions, which can be extended for another 15 years but only with senate approval. The length of current concessions, including water rights, would be counted from the day the bill is passed, a senate release said.
Núñez said the way the state currently grants water concessions is generating an unprecedented crisis as it is carried out in an “irregular, absolutely irrational and poorly supervised” fashion.
The proposal, according to Núñez, does not mean the re-nationalization of water but rather a new way of supervising concessions which would require a modification to the country’s water law.
Source: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 10 Sep 2009
Posted in Chile, Policy & legislation, Water resources management
Tagged water concessions, water rights
Chile will have to begin paying for 100% of the Silala water it uses in four years, Bolivia’s state news agency ABI reported the country’s foreign minister David Choquehuanca as saying.
“According to the preliminary agreement, we have to draw up a long-term agreement with Chile in four years. In the meantime, Chile will have to pay for 50% of the Silala waters it uses. In four years, it will have to pay for 100%,” Choquehuanca said.
The preliminary agreement on rights to the Silala was to be signed around this time, but Bolivian authorities decided to push back the date until 2010 after the opposition and others questioned the agreement.
Both countries have argued for decades over Chile’s right to use Silala waters, which flow from Bolivia into Chile. Chilean authorities have claimed Silala is an international river due to the route it follows and so is regulated by international law. Bolivia, on the other hand, has argued the waters originate from 94 springs on its territory, and so are not governed by international law.
The value of the waters has increased tremendously over the last few years, as they have become vital for mining companies operating in northern Chile, while Bolivian officials argue this leaves Potosí department without sufficient water.
The preliminary document establishes that Chile will pay for 50% of the Silala waters it uses, while further and more detailed studies are carried out to determine whether the Silala is a river or a spring. These studies will indicate if Chile needs to pay for an additional percentage of the waters, which could reach another 50%.
Source: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 18 Aug 2009
Chile’s public works ministry (MOP) will submit a bill to modify the country’s concessions law before March 2010, when President Michelle Bachelet’s term ends, public works minister Sergio Bitar told BNamericas.
One of the proposed changes is giving water utilities the option of managing rainwater [stormwater] drainage networks as part of their concession.
MOP submitted a bill to modify the legal framework for water in 2003, but the proposal was found to be unconstitutional. In the previous bill, the drainage concession was established as mandatory for the water utility, said Bitar.
In the new bill, however, if a water utility is not interested in managing the rainwater drainage networks in its concession area, MOP takes care of them, Bitar added.
The current legal system allows water utilities to participate in the execution and management of rainwater systems, but it does not permit them to charge users for the works. Rather, it establishes that works be financed by the state.
Given the urgent need to invest in rainwater drainage in the country, MOP includes the construction and handling of these networks in some highway concession contracts, Bitar said.
A number of highway concessionaires have built and manage these networks and the ministry will continue to use this model, even if the new bill is passed, Bitar added.
The bill submitted in 2003 was declared unconstitutional in part because it proposed that water utilities charge users for services carried out by external companies, which is not permitted under Chilean law.
[I]nvestment in sanitation and rainwater drainage infrastructure during the 2006-10 period will total US$3.7bn, while the amount invested during the 2008-12 period should be at least US$4.5bn.
Source: Eva Medalla, BNamericas.com [subscription site], 07 Jul 2009
Posted in Chile, Financing, Governance, Policy & legislation, Storm drainage
Tagged urban drainage
Business News Americas – Water & Waste
