Caracas, Aug 20, ABN (Tessa Marsman)- In the slums but also in the remote areas of Venezuela kilometer after kilometer of ingeniously self-constructed water pipes are winding their way through the maze of alleys and run over extensions laps of land. A planned water system hardly exists. In other parts water is being brought in by scarce trucks.
Venezuela has sufficient sweet water on its territory, but even so in the numerous slums of the country and in Venezuela’s countryside sometimes there is water, sometimes there is not; and most of the water that is being used is penetrating through extended pipelines directly into the bare soil.
By implementing a new strategy on water Venezuela is now revising its use of sweet water. But the challenges are various. How to plan a proper water provision? How to divide the quantities of large of water between the industries and the population? And how to manage the water without harming the environment?
The access to clean drinking water is not only fought over internationally, on a local level people have been constructing their own supply system over the years, because of a lack of a planned structure of water supply to transport their water from the basins to the houses. Water, however, is available in large quantities on Venezuela’s territory.
Even without taking the Orinoco River into account, with 23 billion m3 of water at its disposal, Venezuela does not lack drinking water. It is even using 93% of its water on producing hydro power.
To make use of the labyrinth of pipes in getting these reserves to the people and to solve the lack of sewage system, the Venezuelan Minister of Environment and Natural Resources started to involve technical neighborhood committees on water. These comities consist of organized citizens with knowledge of the alternative water supply system.
In the chaos of the barrios, the inhabitants are usually the only ones that know how water pipes were constructed.
In order to prevent more chaos, the “Law on Drinking Water Services and Sanitaries” was implemented in 2001 and water companies were nationalized. This year a reform on that law is being proposed. The reform consists of centralization of the legislation on one hand, and decentralization of execution of the plans on the other. Currently every state has its own legislation on water management.
The reform must lead to an overall planning of the water services in accordance with changes and developments in other areas.
“In case of a new train line, for example, and the increase of population accordingly, there will be an increase in water”, explains the Vice-minister on Water of the Ministry of Environment, Cristóbal Francisco Ortiz, in an interview with the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN). “This seems evident, but that has been neglected for many years”.
Other areas of attention are tourism, transport, industries, mining, water ways, water control and of course electricity.
Yearly, Venezuela is generating 104.070 kWh by hydro generation, this is almost 75% of the total generation and the country is looking to produce more.
But the production of energy is not harmless. Hydro power plants are harming environment, produce changes in the landscape, flora and fauna and they have a severe humanitarian impact on the inhabitants of the region. Venezuela’s river regions is inhabited mainly by indigenous communities.
“hydro energy has a severe impact on the environment, but unfortunately we need to produce energy to be able to use it”, says the engineer Carlos Schellenberg one of the world’s leading hydro power equipment supplier and service provider, ALSTOM “on personal account” in an interview with the ABN. Alstrom is contracted to build four new power generators in the Caroní River.
Eduardo Alvarez, representative of Electrificación del Caroní C.A. (EDELCA), sees a broader use of the energy produced in Venezuela. “We can use hydro energy to support our neighboring countries”.
“We are already exporting energy to Colombia and Brazil, and we can raise this in the future”, he said on the sixth social summit.
Venezuela is constructing several new dams. Among eight dams in the Caroní River, the Tayucay is due to produce 2.450 megawatt (mW) and the Aripichi 1200 mW. The government is “promising to take care of the social cultural and environmental difficulties”, according to an article of the ABN.
Involving the people
In order to guarantee water supply for the poor population, an improvement of the waterworks and sanitation were necessary. The the solution however is complex.
Venezuela faces problems of hyper urbanization, poverty and a low level of organization of the public government sector and infrastructure.
Confronting these problems, the socialist government of Venezuela had to set priorities and came up with a rather well thought system.
Citizens are asked to get organized in technical water-work groups. In these groups all community members can present their problem and a possible solution. After this is discussed and decided upon, that plan is handed in with government engineers. These engineers have the same status as the technical groups in order to stimulate a cooperation of the two organs.
“Our technical staff is surprised how technical the average person is. While these middle class engineers used to look down on the inhabitants of the slums, now, they cannot work without their knowledge anymore”, says Vice-minister Cristóbal Francisco Ortiz.
Venezuela’s strategy of involving community councils seems to help. Access to drinking water in 1998 was 80% and it has increased to 91% in 2005. That is 94 % of access in the urban area and 71% in the rural zones, according to Venezuelan government sources. This means that Venezuela has already met with the millennium goal on water
In the everyday life, these numbers translate into an access to clean water at home a few hours a day or more, instead of waiting for a truck that passed by once a month.
Millennium goals
The demand on water is intensifying worldwide. This means that the water needed to produce food for human consumption, industrial processes and all the other uses is becoming scarce, according to a report of the United Nation Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). And as water is becoming scarce the weakest in the world are missing out.
Water supply is one of the eight millennium goals signed in September 2000 by Heads of States that should be reached by 2015. The millennium goal on water sets out to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
Accordingly, in Venezuela’s proportion on division on water between the various sectors are for industry use 11% in comparison to 20% worldwide, domestic use 43% comparing to only 10% average worldwide, and use on agriculture and livestock 46% worldwide being 66 %, according to a report of the ministry for environment in comparison with a report of the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations (UN).
