National waterworks plan highlights 9 areas

Waterworks experts from Chile's government and private sector have developed a nine-point plan to develop an integrated management system for hydraulic resources, speakers said during a meeting on the plan in capital Santiago. The planning document, dubbed "Marco General y Estrategias para un Plan Nacional de Gestión de Recursos Hídricos" in Spanish, is the second version of a document created in 2003. Hosted by the UN's Latin America and Caribbean economic commission Cepal, the Santiago meeting brought together sector experts to discuss steps forward. The nine areas covered in the plan are; institutionalization; efficient water use; water and the environment; underground water; potable water and sanitation; urban drainage; natural basin management; hydroelectric generation; research and public education. WORKING GROUP PLAN The working group that drafted the plan includes the public works ministry's (MOP) water director Humberto Peña; the president of Chile's engineers institute Luis Valenzuela; Sara Larraín with NGO Chile Sustentable; María Elena Zúñiga with the Global Water Partnership; and Ernesto Brown, an engineering consultant. "In general [the plan] presents a brief diagnostic, emphasizing the weaknesses that appear under each issue, and possible alternatives for solutions that could be discussed," reads the planning document. The plan's authors said much work remains to be done. While it establishes numerous action plans, the document does little to implement stronger control and monitoring systems, Larraín said during the Santiago session. And while indeed ambitious, implementing the plan will require money that Chile will be hard-pressed to come up with, Valenzuela said. WATER USE Regarding the issue of efficient water use, the plan stresses that users in Chile have an incentive to conserve water because they pay for it by volume. But efforts to conserve water have not been as successful in the irrigation sector, Luis Gurovic with Católica university's agronomy school said during the conference. Along that vein, one theme that requires further discussion includes the role large irrigation projects should play to better use surface-water resources, according to the planning document. WATER & ENVIRONMENT As for water and the environment, participants highlighted as "positive" a figure that shows Chile's urban population will treat roughly 70% of wastewater by 2005 thanks to "important" investments, compared with the 2000 rate of 23%. But Chile still needs to invest 8.54bn pesos (US$14.6mn) between 2004-2006 to expand potable water coverage in "concentrated" population areas. Further, the country needs to address the 2.1 million rural residents that live without sanitation services. Finally, the plan shows various government and municipal agencies share responsibilities for managing natural water basins, at times overlapping and failing to address certain themes. For example, there is no single agency to monitor land use in basins which are not publicly owned. "Current laws and regulations are tremendously incomplete and ambiguous," reads the planning document.