Published On: Sat, Jul 27th, 2013

Protests as water runs dry in tourist hotspot Taganga

Protesta-por-falta-de-agua

Protests rage as tourist hotspots on Colombia´s Atlantic coast suffer water shortages. Taganga sits at the foot of one of the world´s wettest coastal mountain ranges, so as the taps run dry, Tom Wilkinson ask whether incompetence or corruption is to blame.

The only road coming into Taganga, on Colombia´s Atlantic coast, is blocked by the mothers, children and members of the community in despair at the non-provision of our most basic need: water. This is the second time in less than a week that all of the businesses here have suffered a day of lost trade, supplies and movement of people.

Some have argued that the local community are doing more harm than good by closing the road into their own town, but it works: the people protest, the trade stops and the water flows once more. Only a little water flows however. They pump only just enough water to fill the average house’s water tank by around 1000 litres, lasting the average family less than a week. So once the toilets stop flushing, the people stop showering, and the clothes start stinking again; they head out in large numbers to block the road once more.

This problem is affecting the whole city of Santa Marta. The apparent cause is a broken water pipe on the outskirts of the city in Mamatoco. The pipe burst over a month ago, and the authorities have still not repaired it. The reasons for this institutional feet dragging are not clear, but many wonder why the repair of such a critical water pipe isn´t the first priority of the young Mayor of Santa Marta.

Meantime the water tankers who normally ply their trade to the many newer (richer) properties where the mains water pipes does not reach, now find themselves in a very attractive position supplying water to all the people who can afford it – 120,000 pesos for a tanker full; a price way out of the reach of the majority of the population. The gossip on the street is that the huge amounts of money being made by the water tanker companies is the reason the mains water is staying off.

Let us consider the geographical position of Santa Marta: it sits at the base of the enormous massif named after the city, the ‘Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta’, the highest coastal mountain on Earth. This mountain is considered to be a “high performance hydrographic star” producing 4000m of rainfall a year, which feed 36 rivers flowing down to the base of the mountain.

Despite this, the authorities in charge of the services at the base of this mountain seem unable to channel this perpetual fountain of water into the nearby homes of its people; incredibly the water must arrive by road tanker instead.

In the time it has taken me to write this article, the road has been re-opened. The people have managed to negotiate a little more water. But for how long and how many times do the people here have to ruin a day’s business in their own town before a long term fixed solution is put in place?

All the money being made by the water tanker companies could easily fix the old system and probably even provide a new water pipe to supply the growing town of Taganga and the city of Santa Marta.

Along with a dangerously inept police force, the beautiful and touristically important town of Taganga feels completely abandoned by the Colombian authorities.

Surely the good people of Magdalena deserve two of the most basic human rights, water & security? Perhaps if they felt like they had an effective channel of communication to the authorities I am sure they would not cut off their own town either.

Meanwhile, the shortages continue and the pipe remains unfixed. Incompetence or financial interest?

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