Venezuelan capital Caracas loses over half of its potable water resources through leakage in damaged networks, an official from public water utility Hidrocapital said. The fact that Hidrocapital provides water free to low-income communities does not help either, since people who do not pay for water tend to use more.
Read full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 16 Mar 2010
Venezuela’s environment ministry Minamb will implement measures to restrict water consumption in the country starting March 1, 2010. The restrictions will apply to households, commercial offices and factories.
Read full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 19 Feb 2010
Posted in Financing, Venezuela, Water distribution
Ing. Alejandro Hitcher nuevo ministro del Poder Popular para el Ambiente
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that Alejandro Hitcher will take over as the new environment minister. Hitcher is currently president of state-owned waterworks company Hidrocapital.
Read full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 27 Jan 2010
The governments of Iran and Venezuela signed a total of 12 cooperation agreements on November 25, 2009, including initiatives to improve water and sanitation infrastructure. One agreement involves the expansion of the second phase of the Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi potable water system, in Nueva Esparta state, and the installation of a submarine wastewater transfer pipeline in the states Sucre and Nueva Esparta.
Read the full article on: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 30 Nov 2009
Venezuelan public water utility Hidrocapital’s president Alejandro Hitcher has asked the population of Caracas to avoid storing water to counteract the rationing implemented by the firm on 2 November 2009. Storing water increases the risk of dengue.
Read the full article on BNamericas.com [subscription site], 11 Nov 2009
Posted in Venezuela, Water distribution
Venezuelan authorities have announced a water rationing plan for capital Caracas, the environment ministry (Minamb) said. The opposition says the government is using the water cuts to drive them into exile.
Minamb says rationing is needed to increase water reserves and guarantee sufficient supply for the city’s population.
Restrictions started on 2 November 2009 and consist of a series of programmed cuts to the water supply. These cuts will not last longer than 48 hours, Minamb said.
During the rainy season, from May to October, rainfall was 30% below average due to the El Niño climate phenomenon. This affected water levels in reservoirs such as El Lagartijo, whose current level is at 4Mm3, compared to the average 30Mm3 it should have at this time of year.
One of the greatest problems the city faces is cultural, as citizens consume much more water than they need: “We are producing water for twice the amount of citizens we supply, and this is due to waste,” environment minister Yuvirí Ortega said.
The magnitude of the drought is not as large as the one in 2003, when the Camatagua reservoir dried up, Ortega said.
Even schools will have to deal with the water shortages, the government said. Only hospitals will be equipped with water around the clock.
The water rationing is a bit surprising according to BNamericas, because in July 2009, the president of public water utility Hidrocapital, Alejandro Hitcher, said that rainfall in that month guaranteed potable water supply in the city for the next year.
The opposition is accusing Chavez of limiting water use as a “democratic” way of driving them into exile. The opposition is expected to win the upcoming 2010 legislative elections and Chávez has already warned citizens about the violence that will break out if his party does not obtain a majority.
The water cuts will not only lead to general panic but will also affect the economy, as restaurants, clubs and all sorts of services will be forced to curtail activities, a member of opposition party Acción Democrática (AD) told BNamericas. The AD member added that the government is limiting citizens’ capacity to store water on the days it is not available.
“They are monitoring the amount of water that we use on a daily basis and, if this increases, they will shut down our service. In other words, they are not letting us store any water, because storing would boost consumption on the days previous to the weekly cuts,” the AD member said.
Source: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 27 Oct 2009 ; CNN, 03 Nov 2009 ; Eva Medalla, BNamericas.com [subscription site], 05 Nov 2009
Posted in Governance, Policy & legislation, Venezuela, Water distribution
Tagged drought, urban water supply, water rationing, water wastage
President Hugo Chavez called on Venezuelans to stop singing in the shower and to wash in three minutes because the oil-exporting nation is having problems supplying water and electricity.
“Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour. No kids, three minutes is more than enough. I’ve counted, three minutes, and I don’t stink,” he said during a televised Cabinet meeting.
“He obviously has no teenage daughters”, remarked English columnist Gerald Warner in the Telegraph. “You could not ask for a better illustration of the knee-jerk instinct of socialism to intrude into every area of private life than the prohibition of singing in the bath and the restriction of showers to three minutes”.
Venezuela has suffered several serious electricity blackouts in the past year because of rapidly growing demand and under-investment, which has been aggravated by a drop in water levels in hydroelectric dams that provide most of its energy. Chavez announced energy-saving measures and said he would create a ministry to deal with the electricity shortages. Other proposed measures included cloud-seeding and prohibiting imports of low-efficiency electrical appliances. He called on ministries and state-run companies to cut energy consumption by 20 percent immediately.
More Latin American countries are facing water problems. Two months ago Brazilians were urged to “pee in the shower” to conserve water.
See Hugo Chavez’ promo speech for the three-minute shower (in Spanish).
Source: Ana Isabel Martinez, Reuters / Washington Post, 21 Oct 2009
Posted in Campaigns & events, Venezuela
Tagged Hugo Chavez, hydropower, showering, water conservation, water shortage
Venezuelan sociologist Vanessa Cartaya is predicting a 10-30% reduction in the country’s water resources over the next 20 years due to deforestation and erosion, government news agency ABN reported.
Venezuela’s potable water is extracted from 18 of the country’s 43 national parks. These parks cover the needs of 83% of the country’s urban population, including Caracas, Maracaibo and Valencia, said Cartaya.
Deforestation and erosion not only affect potable water supply, but the majority of the country’s agricultural land is irrigated with resources from these national parks.
The study aims to promote policy improvements and boost public funding to preserve these areas.
Source: BNamericas.com [subscription site], 23 Jul 2009
Posted in Venezuela, Water resources management, Water supply
Tagged deforestation, erosion, water shortage
Official numbers and statistics in Venezuela are unreliable and are adversely affecting private investment and financing in areas such as water and infrastructure [because] they do not reflect real development and investment in the country, and their manipulation also contributes to an increase in the country-risk index, [an] analyst said.
Political risk is also on the rise because the lack of reliable data is attributed to the government and its political agenda. As a result, foreign investment is decreasing, while interest rates for loans are increasing and financing is harder to obtain, the analyst said.
Some of the sectors being affected by unreliable figures include potable water and sewerage coverage [and] wastewater treatment. [W]eekly and monthly bulletins [...] outlining the development of basic services and health issues in the country [...] are no longer being published.
One example is the propagation of the dengue virus, as there is no reliable data to monitor the disease. One of the key issues in the fight against dengue is the expansion of potable water networks as this prevents inhabitants from storing water to cover their needs. Storing rainwater increases the amount of stagnant water sources, which is where mosquitoes that carry the virus lay their eggs.
Source: Eva Medalla, BNamericas [subscription site, 31 Mar 2009
Posted in Financing, Governance, Venezuela, Wastewater treatment, Water supply
Tagged dengue
Venezuelan government authorities expect potable water services to reach 100% of the population by 2010, said foreign relations deputy minister for Europe Alejandro Fleming said in a speech at Expo Zaragoza 2008.
Currently, 93% of the country’s population has access to potable water and has already reached the Millennium Development Goal for potable water coverage.
Venezuela is currently working on a desalination project to provide water to isolated communities on the country’s coast.
Fleming called on the rest of the world to follow his country’s example by making water part of the public domain that “can never be privatized”.
Source: BNamericas [subscription site], 27 Aug 2008
Business News Americas – Water & Waste
