From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   The South American capital with a week’s worth of water left   
   By Harriet Barber, 7 July 2023, Telegraph   
   Uruguay’s capital is days away from running out of drinking water amid the   
   nation’s worst drought in 74 years.   
      
   The government has told locals in Montevideo, a metropolis of more than 1.3   
   million people, that they have seven to ten days of drinking water left.   
      
   It follows a multi-year drought and high temperatures which have drained the   
   city’s reservoirs. Officials announced that reserves are at 1.8% of their   
   capacity.   
      
   The state’s water company has begun drilling wells in the centre of the   
   capital to reach the water beneath the ground, while protests have erupted   
   over shortages.   
      
   Uruguay is the only country in Latin America to have achieved quasi-universal   
   access to safe drinking water – meaning almost everyone has easy access to   
   water free from contamination – after enshrining access to water as a   
   fundamental right in a 2005    
   constitutional amendment.   
      
   However, locals have already been forced to turn to bottled water after the   
   state-owned water company, Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE), began mixing   
   salty water with fresh water to stretch supplies in June.   
      
   The mixing of salt water has triggered health concerns from vulnerable   
   populations.   
      
   “It’s horrible. You can’t drink it,” teacher Adrian Dias told Reuters.   
   “My wife has hypertension, so it’s impossible for her to drink this water   
   for the amount of salt it has.”   
      
   Although the health minister said the mixed water was not a risk to most   
   people, she advised people with hypertension and kidney disease, as well as   
   those who are pregnant, to limit or avoid tap water completely.   
      
   Many residents in Montevideo and the surrounding area cannot afford to buy   
   bottled water, and have been forced to keep drinking from the taps.   
      
   Anger over water shortages has incited multiple protests on the streets of   
   Montevideo.   
      
   “There’s water, but it’s in private hands,” reads a banner hanging   
   outside the offices of OSE, in Montevideo.   
      
   Federico Kreimerman, an OSE union leader, said agribusiness was partially to   
   blame for Uruguay’s water woes, explaining water from the Santa Lucia River   
   is syphoned off to private reservoirs for irrigation.   
      
   “The share of water for human consumption is tiny,” Mr Kreimerman told   
   Reuters news agency. “Agribusiness entrepreneurs dam the river and use it   
   for themselves.”   
      
   Redes-Amigos de la Tierra, an environmental protection group, also blamed the   
   situation on “plundering” factories, rice-growing companies and soy   
   farmers.   
      
   “Almost 80% of our freshwater goes to the agricultural and forestry sector,   
   so we can certainly say water resource exploitation is very high in   
   Uruguay,” biologist and environmental expert Mariana Meerhoff told DW, a   
   German media outlet.   
      
   “Because so much water is used in industry, the amount for water for   
   personal use and nature is obviously very limited.”   
      
   Production has been paused in some of the city’s factories. The Frigorífico   
   Canelones meatpacking company sent 700 workers to collect unemployment   
   insurance when it halted production this week, according to the Buenos Aires   
   Herald.   
      
   Climate change is exacerbating both water scarcity and water-related hazards,   
   such as floods and droughts, in countries around the world. Neighbouring   
   Argentina is also grappling with its worst drought in decades, which is having   
   a severe impact on    
   farming.   
      
   In June, Uruguay’s government declared a water emergency, exempting taxes on   
   bottled water and ordering the construction of a new reservoir.   
      
   President Luis Lacalle Pou insisted his government was “hurrying all the   
   works and trying to continue looking for alternative sources” of water.   
      
   The government is also distributing drinking water to vulnerable groups like   
   schools, nursing homes and hospitals, said Gerardo Amarilla, undersecretary at   
   Uruguay’s environment ministry.   
      
   At Canelon Grande Reservoir, a major water source for Montevideo, water levels   
   have been so low that grass now covers what was once a lake.   
      
   “It’s bleak,” local Mario del Pino said, standing in the middle of the   
   reservoir, surrounded by weeds and cracked dirt. “Water used to cover   
   everything you can see.”   
      
   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/sou   
   h-american-capital-with-a-weeks-worth-of-water-left/   
      
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