Uruguay has historic water crisis and salt water in the sink – 07/13/2023 – World

Alejandro Andrada turns on the kitchen faucet and pours a jet of water into a glass. “Do you smell it?” he asks, referring to the chlorine odor that comes off the slightly cloudy liquid. He then repeats the act, this time using a charcoal filter: “The chlorine he removes, but if he tastes it, it’s still salty.”

Since the water started coming out of the pipes a little strange more than two months ago, the 49-year-old Uruguayan has set up his own engineering scheme. In addition to the kitchen filter, he installed another one in the shower and placed a red basin next to the sink. “That’s for washing your face, for brushing your teeth I use gallon water.”

Adaptations have become routine for the 2 million inhabitants of the Montevideo metropolitan region, where more than half of the population lives. Uruguay is facing its worst water crisis in 70 years, after a long period without rain that dried up freshwater reserves and made President Luis Lacalle Pou declare a state of emergency and authorize a mixture with brackish water from the River Plate, which with the sea.

This raised levels of chloride and sodium and doubled the consumption of mineral water by Uruguayans — who, unlike Brazilians, have always been used to drinking water from the sink. In the markets, the gallons replenished daily end quickly. “Sometimes they only have gas,” says Amalia Sasia, 23, at the cashier in a downtown supermarket.

The drought in the country is one more result of the prolonged La Niña phenomenon, which has reduced rainfall in southern South America over the past three years, also affecting Argentina and part of Brazil. Although it is a natural event, it occurs in a context of climate change that causes more extreme temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN’s climate arm.

The main reservoir that supplies Montevideo reached less than 2% of its capacity last week, so it was estimated that drinking water would only last a few days. But then rains fell and gave the government a breather so that it could finish an emergency work that will draw water from another river until the end of the month, using 13 km of Brazilian pipes that are arriving in trucks.

While the construction is not finished, the secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado, stated that “the quality of the water will continue in the current parameters [divulgados diariamente]being suitable for human consumption and for all other activities”, despite being salty and smelling of chlorine.

There are not few, however, who hesitate to take it.

“We have three ‘levels’: those who can are using mineral water to brush their teeth, make mate, coffee and cook. Others manage to buy it to drink, but cook with tap water. And then there are those who, even with the help of the government, they can’t buy it and they keep drinking that water”, says Alejandro.

To the sound of Chitãozinho and Xororó, the community leader drives through the Casavalle region, on the outskirts of Montevideo, collecting stories from neighbors. Behind the window of her little shop, shopkeeper Rosmary Soares, 35, reports that she started to cook food in the oven. “People complain all the time”, she comments next to the advertisement for the gallon that announces “low sodium”.

“I felt pain in my stomach from the mate at first,” says baker and father of saint Alfredo Gonzales, 55, from his yard, who now says he puts less salt on his bread every morning. He shares the water that his pregnant daughter receives at the polyclinic. She is in the group that the Ministry of Health says should not consume tap water, along with people with chronic kidney disease, heart failure and cirrhosis.

In addition to the flexibility on imports and exemption from water taxes, which are reflected in posters in supermarkets announcing the reduced price, Lacalle Pou announced aid equivalent to two liters per day, per person, to families included in social assistance programs a few weeks ago. .

The government claims that the measure serves a third of the population, but there are those who say that it is insufficient and arrived late. “There are many people in poverty — made worse by the water crisis — who are not classified as poor and are not receiving help. One woman says she had to change clothes for a gallon of water,” says Alejandro.

The response with the works is also criticized for being late. “I don’t want to dedicate myself to what hasn’t been done before. With that urgency, it’s working to provide the best water quality with the resources we have”, countered the president when questioned in May, adding on another occasion that the work to pull water from another river was not possible before for technical reasons.

Former president Pepe Mujica admitted part of the responsibility. “We fell asleep,” said the leader of the left-wing Frente Ampla at a press conference. “I think we should have dealt with this water issue much earlier. It’s my personal opinion, I carry mine, let others have theirs.”