ENVIRONMENT-CUBA: Pipeline May Bring Relief to Drought-Stricken City

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Nov 19 2004 (IPS) - A pipeline constructed to bring water from the Cauto River, Cuba’s largest, to the drought-stricken city of Holguín is finally up and running and should help bring relief to the more than 300,000 inhabitants of this major urban centre in eastern Cuba.

"It’s working well and transporting the 500 litres of water a second that it was designed to handle," engineer Rafael Aguilera, the director of the pipeline construction project, told the local newspaper Ahora.

Located 740 kilometres from Havana, the city of Holguín is the capital of the province of the same name, which is the country’s third most highly populated.

The 53-kilometre-long pipeline was constructed in the record time of seven months. Serious problems emerged, however, when the time came to put it into operation, this past September.

According to Ahora, attempts to put the pipeline into use were frustrated a full 25 times, as a result of breakages in the Italian-made pipes, which could not withstand the water pressure required. But since last week, the authorities say, the flow of water has been stabilised.

Aguilera noted that a project of this scope would normally take up to three years to complete, but the state of emergency declared in the city 15 months ago in response to the drought made it essential to complete the pipeline in the shortest possible time.

The project involves piping water from the Cauto River to treatment plants in Holguín, from where it will be supplied directly to homes, industries and public services.

The state of emergency was declared in July of last year, when the drought was already severe, but the situation became even more critical in September, when the local government acknowledged that the water remaining in reservoirs would be barely enough for 100 more days.

The government’s strategy for the city of Holguín has included the delivery of drinking water in 138 tanker trucks, the construction of public water storage tanks to hold water for other purposes, the drilling of over 170 new wells, and the manufacture of hand pumps.

During the past 20 years, annual precipitation has only exceeded the historical average of 1,323 millimetres in 1987 and 2001. In addition, 75 percent of the rainfall is concentrated in the mountainous areas of the province, where the population is sparse and the soil is not suited to agriculture.

Government sources report that over 40,000 tons of food and four million litres of milk that should have been produced over the last 15 months have been lost. In addition, some 5,000 hectares of farmland were left unsown this past September because there was no way of irrigating them.

The losses in the cattle farming sector during this same period have been estimated at roughly 25 million dollars, according to the Cuban press agency AIN.

The measures adopted in Holguín to help maintain food production include planting in areas with the most dependable supply of water and introducing technological advances aimed at boosting crop yields.

There has also been emphasis placed on crops with short growing seasons, drought-resistant varieties, and the use of organic pesticides and fertilisers.

Despite the promising beginning for the pipeline, not everyone has benefited yet. "We still aren’t getting water," said Lidia Consuegra, who lives in the city of Holguín and considers herself lucky because there is a well near her home "that hasn’t dried up yet."

Henry Parra, the representative of the National Water Resources Institute in the province of Holguín, told IPS that even with the pipeline from the Cauto River operating smoothly, there will still be a significant shortage of the precious liquid, which will be piped into homes an average of one day a week.

The city of Holguín is receiving roughly 500 litres of water a second from the Cauto River, just under half the 1,100 litres a second that the city’s water treatment plants process under normal conditions.

Up until late last month, the city was also receiving around 400 litres of water a second from a reservoir that had still not run dry, but whose reserves were predicted to last for only a very short period.

In addition, local authorities reported last week that some 300,000 litres of water were being brought to the city by rail. The so-called "water train" runs out of a sugarcane farming community located 20 kilometres from Holguín.

As for the new pipeline, Aguilera noted, "We’re optimistic after seeing how it’s been operating so far, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of further breakages at any given moment, since nine kilometres of the Italian-made pipe are still being used."