The official press woke up this Friday with alerts about the problem in almost all the provincial newspapers
14ymedio, Havana, 4 October 2024 — Along with blackouts and shortages, the lack of water has completed the triad of the crisis in Cuba during the last year. The official press woke up on Friday with alerts in almost all the provincial newspapers attesting to the debacle. Aware of how little has been done and with the usual voluntarism, Deputy Minister Inés María Chapman asked the employees of the sector to “work quickly” to solve a problem that is now urgent.
Chapman traveled to Santiago de Cuba this Friday to check the state of a project that, in theory, will solve the supply problem that affects 85% of the inhabitants of the provincial capital and two neighborhoods of the municipality of San Luis – Paquito Rosales and Dos Caminos – for a total of 15,000 inhabitants. The minister did not spare scolding or utopian requests: “We have to multiply and create work groups, because, in the midst of this complex situation, the priority has to be water,” she said.
The eastern province has shut down its water treatment plant for a general maintenance that is not progressing according to plan. Local leaders said that in some neighborhoods of the city water can only be supplied every 20 days and that the situation has generated “annoyance.” The installations, in addition, suffer from multiple “leaks and other deficiencies,” such as damaged valves.
The San Luis pipeline, 10.7 kilometers long, should be finished by October 10, but there are no guarantees that the deadline will be met. The Government spent, said one of the engineers, 38 million pesos, because the area had “historic problems” with the supply.
In Cienfuegos, on the other hand, the press tells readers that the water problem is “temporary”
In Cienfuegos, on the other hand, the press tells readers that the water problem is “temporary” – the word with which Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel designated the crisis in 2019. There will continue to be “instability in the pumping schedules,” and a “bad handling of the valves” has been detected.
According to the Empresa de Acueducto in the province, “more than 24,000 Cienfuegans are affected, due to the drought, breaks in pumping equipment and exits from the grid, the latter everywhere and in plain sight.” The number of temporarily sealed leaks gives the measure of the state of the pipes: 2,495, and they are “not always suppressed with the required quality.” Some even have remarkable proportions, capable of affecting 8,000 people, according to Acueducto.
The territory also suffers from drought, so the news of the breakdown of five pumps was the straw that broke the camel’s back. For weeks, entire municipalities, such as Aguada de Pasajeros, were left without water. Managers are now asking the Government for “spare parts and fittings” in addition to more fuel.
“There are projections for a lot of investments,” officials say. There is money to rehabilitate the pipes of Damují and Paso Bonito, and install one in Rancho Luna. But everything is in the process of “getting started.” There will be no short-term solutions.
As for Havana, where the situation has been stagnant for months, the press has made regular reports on the hydraulic crisis. Recently, the capital newspaper says, a pump was repaired to send 400 liters of water per second to the Central Aqueduct System.
The newspaper published photos of the bulky installation, with divers assembling the pipe and replacing the broken segments. “The recovery and assembly of the equipment was a challenge since its dimensions and weight required high technical skill and operational rigor.
The newspaper published photos of the cumbersome installation, with divers assembling the pipe
Divers and hydraulic system specialists worked together to fix the equipment connected to the electrical energy systems and the pipelines,” explained Tribuna de La Habana.
There is a long way to go, however, for the improvements to be felt in homes, where blackouts also affect the arrival of water. Sara, a resident of Nuevo Vedado, an area that has suffered blackouts at least four hours every day, told 14ymedio. Without electricity, the water can be in the cistern of the buildings, but it will not reach the tanks without the help of the pumps.
Sara does not have false hopes about the supply. “This is like a sickly old man who has a disease and when he recovers no longer returns to the point where he was, but continues downhill to the coffin,” she laments.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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