Costa Rica’s Legislature last Thursday (Nov. 2) approved, in first debate, a new law on the management of water resources, after a 2014 law was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court or Sala IV, following its approval that same year.
This new bill – Ley de Gestión Integrada del Recurso Hídrico (Law on Integrated Management of Water Resources), that was agreed upon jointly with the agricultural and agroindustrial chambers, permits the Dirección Nacional de Aguas (National Water Board) to fine between five and seven base salaries (between ¢2.1 million and ¢2.9 million) to those who drill wells without the proper permits.
The President of the Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA) – national water and sewer service, Yamileth Astorga stressed that it is necessary to demystify the new law because it is not true that water is being privatized.
On the contrary, the Astorga emphasize that it is established, with the status of law, that access to water for consumption is maintained as a human right.
Nacion.com reports that “…The aim of the new legislation is, mainly, to guarantee access to quality drinking water as a human right, to update penalties for illegal exploitation of the resource, specifically for activities such as the illegal digging of wells and water pollution.” “… Unlike the plan approved in March 2014, the new version of the initiative eliminates the articles that referred to participatory construction in the formulation of the policy, plans and technical regulations of the new water law.
In addition, the articles referring to the hydrological unit councils, originally described as intersectoral participation bodies for monitoring application of the law, have been eliminated.” How Can Costa Rica Have A Water Shortage?
It’s been said that an Israeli tourist complained of daily interruptions in the water supply in a luxurious beach house he rented in the province of Guanacaste, where lack of water is already a serious issue, and when he was explained that this was a problem in many areas in Costa Rica, he opened his eyes in amazement and said, “They are short of water in this country?” The editorial in Nacion.com is clear: “The problem is a shortage of water.
If meteorologists are not wrong in predicting the lack of rain, four major areas in the Greater Metropolitan area (GAM) could suffer shortages of between four and eight hours a day in the coming months.
Each of these dozens of water studies carried out in Costa Rica stresses the need to coordinate the conglomerate of responsible bodies, but it seems, from the results, that this is impossible.
It is irrefutable that as long as responsibility for the water supply is not unified into a single national body, the problem will remain.”