Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

CUBA: Drought-Stricken East Pins Hopes on Aqueduct

Dalia Acosta* - Tierramérica

HOLGUIN, Cuba, Nov 3 2004 (IPS) - Tension fills the air as 300,000 people in eastern Cuba anxiously await the construction of an aqueduct that is to bring them water from the Cauto River, the longest on this Caribbean island.

The emergency caused by the intense drought has lasted more than a year, and the city of Holguín, 700 km from Havana, is counting the hours. Two of the three nearby reservoirs are now dry, and the third holds barely enough water for 100 days of even limited use.

”I used to pray for rain, but now I am following with my soul the construction of the aqueduct. That appears to be our salvation,” says Belkys Gómez, a 37-year-old woman who ”had a well in the back patio, but it dried up.”

However the aqueduct project, which cost the state six million dollars, has not been able to get past the testing phase. A section of the pipeline, made of parts from Italy, cannot withstand the water pressure, and is being replaced with Cuban parts.

”We are working on this and looking for alternatives,” Henry Parra, engineer with the National Water Resources Institute, told Tierramérica. He stressed that the most important thing is that ”the city must not collapse.”

The aqueduct, which stretches 52.8 km and was built in seven months, skipped the process for obtaining environmental permits, which for the past decade has been required in Cuba for any major new project.

”We are using a pumping station built years ago on the Cauto. The ministry of sugar production had eight pumps there that extracted 500 litres per second. Now it is using just two, and we will use three to pump 250 litres per second,” said Parra.

Holguín is guaranteed 500 litres per second from this source, which is far below actual demand and the capacity of the water purification plants, which can handle 1,100 litres per second.

Even with the Cauto stabilised and the 400 litres per second the city receives today, the water deficit will be high. According to the official, ”water will continue to be distributed to the population in cycles of five or six days.

Parra is one of the governmental leaders who for more than a year is participating in the ”water conference.” This gathering is held each day in a community and, say observers, functions as if it were a command centre of the Civil Defence during a never-ending hurricane season.

The government strategy has included transporting potable water in 138 tanker trucks, the building of public tanks to store water for other uses, construction of more than 170 wells and the manufacture of hand-operated pumps.

In any part of the city at any hour of the day one can see people carrying plastic containers as they go to purchase water for the largely symbolic price of one cent on the peso per litre. One dollar is equal to 27 pesos at the official exchange rate.

Holguín resident Belkys Gómez says ”the worst of all is the time that this misery has lasted.”

Saying a toast over a glass of water, a common gesture among Cubans when they receive visitors, is disappearing in Holguín. ”We can’t cook, clean, do the washing, bathe or make coffee with any tranquillity,” says Gómez.

In the last 20 years, rainfall has surpassed the historic average of 1,323 mm per year only twice: in 1987 and 2001. The accumulated drought has affected the province for the past eight years, and in 2003 it began to take its toll on the city of Holguín.

Experts report that 75 percent of the rain that falls in Cuba is concentrated in the mountainous region, where population is sparse and there is little agriculture. When it rains in the city, the water flows into the neighbouring province.

The saving grace has been squash, a staple food in the area and which grows almost wild, Rafael Vecino, a spokesman for the head of the local government, told Tierramérica.

Known in Cuba as ”the land of nickel” and for having the island’s main brewery, Holguín is a main tourist destination and an important producer of grains and other farm products.

According to Vecino, in the past 15 months production declines in the province have totalled more than 40,000 tons of food and more than four million litres of milk. Some 5,000 hectares were not cultivated in September because there was no water for irrigation.

The number of cattle that have died as a result of the drought reaches 19,200, according to Rafael Vivar, a technical services delegate from the Ministry of Agriculture in Holguín.

With hopes pinned on the Cauto-Holguín aqueduct, Vecino adds that there do exist alternatives. ”Everything is ready. If the last of the reservoirs is exhausted and the aqueduct is not completed, we will bring water to the city, even if by railroad.”

(* Dalia Acosta is an IPS correspondent. Originally published Oct. 30 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)