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Uruguay breathes a sigh of relief: the drought that plagued its territory for three years is a closed chapter.
It was recently announced by the National Institute of Meteorology, after December 2023 showed normal rainfall conditions, something that had not happened since the beginning of 2020. It was the worst drought in 70 years and its effects hit both the countryside and the city.
The agricultural sector recorded, between 2022 and 2023, losses equivalent to 3% of the national GDP, about 1,880 million dollars.
The water deficit also left Paso Severino dry, the main source of drinking water supply for the metropolitan area, causing an unprecedented crisis in supply.
1.7 million people were affected, especially between April and August 2023, by the deterioration of tap water that became salty and undrinkable.
Despite being irrigated by rivers, streams and ravines, Uruguay lacks an alternative source to supply drinking water to half of its population.
During the crisis, the authorities decided to capture waters from the Río de la Plata, which are saltier due to oceanic influence, so as not to cut off the supply.
This caused the water from the taps to come out with a strong brackish tone and not regain its neutral flavor until the rains returned.
94% of Montevideo residents stopped drinking tap water and switched to bottled water, according to the consulting firm
Cifra
.
“There was a lack of planning,” agreed the analysts, who echoed another piece of information that left the unsuspecting citizen stunned: in Uruguay, more than 40% of the potable water is lost due to breaks in the old pipes of OSE, the public company in charge of supply.
Helped by a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Government (a center-right coalition) is currently in the process of repairing these defects, according to the Minister of the Environment of Uruguay, Robert Bouvier, in conversation with América Futura.
Bouvier defends what was done during the water crisis: “The Government acted well, it acted on time.”
He highlights the construction in May 2023 of an emergency dam in Belastiquí, on the Santa Lucía River, and the attention given to the most vulnerable population.
About 500,000 people, he details, received help between July and September to buy two liters of bottled water per day.
And he adds: “Since the water emergency was declared [on June 19, 2023], the Government was transparent with the information.”
Faced with criticism that points to a lack of planning, Bouvier responds that this administration presented the Arazatí project before the water crisis, with the aim of building an alternative plant for the supply of drinking water.
Arazatí, also called Neptuno, is a private initiative that will make water from the Río de la Plata drinkable and cover 30% of the demand of the metropolitan area, which today depends exclusively on the Santa Lucía River.
“We are convinced that it is a very good solution,” he emphasizes.
The minister explains that the project does not yet have a start date because the environmental impact study has not been completed and the contract with the private consortium Aguas de Montevideo, in charge of the work, has not yet been signed.
Arazatí is scheduled to be built in two and a half years and will cost the Uruguayan State around 660 million dollars.
A man observes the dam at 2% of its capacity in July 2023. Ana Ferreira
“The great crisis from which we are emerging showed how we have not complied with the Constitution, how we do not prioritize the preservation of our soils and our waters,” sociologist María Selva Ortiz, a member of the NGO Redes Amigos de, tells América Futura. the earth.
Beyond the drought, Ortiz maintains that this crisis showed the impact that the advance of agribusiness in Uruguay in the last 20 years had on the Santa Lucía River basin, the main source of water for the metropolitan area.
“Large-scale tree planting for pulp and soy monoculture have put our waters in serious quality and quantity problems,” she emphasizes.
According to her, there are academic studies that warn of a 50% decrease in water flows due to tree monocultures.
“If we take care of it, the Santa Lucía basin is absolutely suitable and can provide water for the entire metropolitan area.
But we are doing the opposite,” Ortiz remarks.
In that sense, he considers that the Government turns its back on this area, opting for the Arazatí project, which will capture waters from the Río de la Plata.
“Arazatí is a false solution,” he continues.
For Redes, this project will violate article 47 of the Constitution, which establishes that water management must be public.
Arazatí, they argue, will leave water management in private hands.
In addition, they agree with the manifesto presented by scientists, in October 2022, according to which, the project “presents environmental problems” and says that the salinity of the water of the Río de la Plata “far exceeds the acceptable values to be made drinkable.”
The Government denies that Arazatí represents a privatization of water and maintains that salinity events are not frequent.
“[The public company] OSE will be in charge of managing the plant, there is no unconstitutionality,” says Bouvier.
The minister emphasizes that the project will offer security to the population by capturing water from a different source, the Río de la Plata, which will also be made drinkable in a new plant.
However, he assures that the Government has not ruled out the Casupá project, presented by the previous administration of the Frente Amplio (center-left), which contemplates the construction of another reservoir on the Santa Lucía River.
“That will be left for a later stage,” he says.
Lucía Etcheverry, deputy for the opposition Frente Amplio, believes that the water crisis that Uruguay went through showed that neither the political system nor society "had it on their radar" that the country "could reach the situation that was experienced."
She hopes that part of the learning will be that the political system “takes a long-term view” and generates State policies on environmental matters.
“It is possible,” she assures in dialogue with América Futura.
“Who would have thought that Uruguay would change its energy matrix?
Today 90% of our energy comes from renewable sources,” she comments.
To begin with, Etcheverry says that the country must break with the dichotomy between environment and production and seek balance so that growth does not go to the detriment of water resources, harmed today by intensive exploitation and the use of agrochemicals, among other factors.
A bridge is exposed after spending 30 years under water during the drought at the Severino Dam.Matilde Campodonico (AP)
In Uruguay, the variability of rainfall, more frequent droughts and their impact on production have placed the implementation of irrigation at the center of the debate.
The country has already had a law since 2017, but it was never fully regulated.
“This irrigation law can be perfected and we must work so that it can meet the expectations and needs of the entire productive sector,” says Etcheverry.
For that, he maintains, the State has to be a regulatory actor, which balances the asymmetries between large and small producers.
“Irrigation policy has to advance along the lines of responsible production,” he continues.
According to Regadores Unidos del Uruguay, irrigation is currently used in 40,000 of the 1.8 million hectares dedicated to agriculture.
“The lesson of this crisis is that little by little a water culture is being consolidated in Uruguay,” anthropologist Javier Taks, coordinator of the UNESCO Chair of Water and Culture at the University of the Republic, explains to América Futura.
“As if it were a language, through water, we understand each other better as a society.
We better understand what our limitations are, our potential, our social order.”
For Taks, in this crisis there was “a great distance” between the institutions that exist in the country around water governance, such as the Santa Lucía River Basin Commission (integrated, among others, by civil society), and the decisions that were taken at other political levels, such as Parliament or the Executive Branch.
“There is a lack of maturity and understanding,” he points out.
Likewise, the anthropologist observes that in the agricultural sector of Uruguay - the main consumer of fresh water - there still prevails a feeling of being a victim of environmentalism and a caricatured vision of the ecological movement.
“We must work to understand the intimate relationship between a healthy environment, production and the insertion of this country in the world,” he emphasizes.
After the water crisis, Taks proposes improving citizen access to information about how the country manages its waters and expanding environmental education beyond school.
He also considers it necessary to strengthen the State's capacity for analysis and control over the use of this resource and to support local academic research that expands knowledge.
“It is not less of a State, it is more of a State or, at least, a different State,” he reasons.
A woman uses bottled water in Montevideo.Ana Ferreira