CUBA: Fewer Blackouts, but Water Shortage Still Hurts

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jun 30 2004 (IPS) - The residents of the Cuban capital received some good news and bad news from the government: there will be fewer of those exasperating electrical blackouts, but a severe water shortage, which has already hit the island’s eastern provinces hard, now threatens Havana.

”If it’s like they say, we’ll have one less problem because we’ll have electricity, but my house hasn’t had water for two days,” says Carmen Sarría, resident of Havana’s Boyeros neighbourhood, near the José Martí International Airport.

The water shortage has grown worse over the past few weeks for much of the capital, home to 2.2 million people. The main water sources for the city are far below capacity or almost exhausted due to lack of rainfall.

Reports from the government’s Unión Eléctrica this week said that with service restored at the Felton thermoelectric plant, in eastern Cuba, there will be fewer blackouts, a problem that has plagued Havana since late May.

But the government energy agency did not say when the Antonio Guiteras electrical plant would be up and running. Located 100 km from Havana, it is meant to ensure full energy supplies for the capital.

The strategic Antonio Guiteras was taken off-line for routine maintenance, but several unforeseen factors, like the drought, have led to blackouts, some lasting as long as seven hours and affecting the entire country for most of the last month.

”In my opinion, the worst is the unpredictability,” Sarría told IPS. ”When the blackouts were planned, at least you could prepare yourself and protect your electrical appliances,” said the 50-year-old designer, recalling the rolling blackouts imposed by the government during the energy crisis of the 1990s.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main trade partner at the time, the country lost its annual supply of 91 million barrels of oil at preferential prices. The electrical, transportation and other sectors of the economy were left nearly in ruins..

But by opening its doors to foreign investment in oil exploration in the 1990s, Cuba set itself up for a gradual increase in domestic production of petroleum and natural gas.

Today, nearly 90 percent of the electrical energy consumed on this socialist-run island is generated by power plants that run on nationally produced fuel, and government officials hope to achieve 100 percent by the end of the year.

The state-run media have blamed the current energy problem on lack of rain. Every year there is less and less precipitation in the eastern region of the country.

”Many surface and underground water supplies are depressed, and in some cases their levels are completely exhausted,” Jorge Kalaf-Maluf, a Havana water resources official, told the provincial newspaper Tribuna de La Habana.

In June, which with May is normally one of the rainiest months of the year, there has been less than 47.5 mm of precipitation, compared to the average for this month of 228 mm, he said.

Other causes of the water shortage, said Kalaf-Maluf, are leaks and equipment failure, the latter caused by electrical shocks or by overworked pumps.

”Water reaches my apartment every two days, give or take. In an hour or so I have to store up as much as I can because nobody knows when we’ll be able to turn on the faucets again. It is a real pain,” says Milagros Valencia, who lives in the Old Havana neighbourhood.

There are some 90,000 people who rely on water supplies delivered in tanker trucks, known locally as ‘pipas’. Another 22,000 Havana residents also regularly turn to this option because they are not receiving water through the distribution network in their homes.

”It takes two ‘pipas’ to fill the tank” on the roof of the apartment building where Valencia lives. She complains that some of the ‘piperos’, the tanker truck operators, take advantage of the shortage and charge 10 dollars for every tank-full.

”It’s illegal, but if we want water, we pay them,” she said.

The water situation is even worse in the eastern provinces, particularly in Holguín, Las Tunas and Camagüey, which have been hit hardest by a severe drought that gives no sign of letting up.

Studies conducted by the government’s civil defence agency indicate the drought will continue and that the best option is to prepare for its further impacts.

The agency recommends appropriate management of reservoirs, faster reforestation efforts (deforestation is seen as contributing to the drought), and ”rational” water use by farmers and industry, according to the official media.