More Water for Manuel Antonio...But Mr. Sancho What About the Sewage? First a little background...Over the last five years Manuel Antonio has been experiencing a severe water shortage, worsening every year. The reason for the shortage is that Costa Rica's national water company (AyA) has been adding more and more new development projects without investing in water delivery infrastructure. The current pipes permit 30 liters/second to reach Manuel Antonio and there is now a shortfall of 6 liters/second. Hotels and other businesses have been having their water trucked to them, at AyA's expense. Everyone else has been suffering without water. This has lead to a number of protests by local people, culminating in the blockage of Manuel Antonio's main road earlier this year. In response to community requests to resolve the problem AyA has said that it has no money to invest in installing wider pipes to transport the water. The cost of installing pipes to effectively double the amount of water to 60 liters/second is $700,000. Currently AyA is spending $290,000/year to transport water in cisterns to local businesses. It is safe to assume that over the last five years close to $700,000 has already been spent on transporting water yet the company claims it has no funds to invest in the necessary infrastructure! I'll re-visit this in a bit. Given the lack of water, a developer from the United States has offered to put up $500,000 to install the new pipes. AyA has agreed to accept the "donation" and on Monday December 18, 2006 the Executive President of AyA invited members of the Manuel Antonio community to a meet him at AyA's headquarters in San Jose to discuss the progress of the project. On Monday I arrived for the meeting as well as business owners and municipal government representatives all the way from Manuel Antonio. However, we were all met with the surprise that the meeting had been cancelled. None of us had been informed about the cancellation of the meeting and for those who had travelled all the way from Manuel Antonio, it was a tremendous inconvenience. A replacement meeting was then called for Wednesday December 20, which I attended and which none of the folks who arrived on Monday attended. The fact that none of these folks attended is unfortunate but not surprising given that we were all burned earlier in the week. The meeting began with the EP of AyA, Lic. Ricardo Sancho noting with disappointment and surprise that none of the people he had met at meetings in Manuel Antonio were present. Clearly, he was oblivious to the fact that all of these people were stood up on Monday! Present at the meeting on Wednesday was the President of the Quepos/Manuel Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the newly elected mayor, Oscar Monge, various employees of AyA, a representative of the Hotel Parador (the VP of which was stood up on Monday), a representative of the Defensoria de los Habitantes, a representative of the company which will be installing the pipes, and a representative of Mike Carter, the developer who is putting up the $500,000 for the project. At this meeting we learned that the installation of the new pipes will begin on January 21, 2007, in spite of the fact that there is still a $200,000 shortfall. For reasons I don't understand Ricardo Sancho stated that AyA will not put up the needed $200,000 but the project will be started anyway on Jan. 21. I guess he is assuming that some other developer or maybe Mike Carter himself will provide the remaining $200,000. This makes sense given that his development called Reserva Manuel Antonio includes 18 homes selling for $300,000+ each (http://www.latitude9.com/Homes_&_Homesites/reserva.htm). It is hard to sell six figure homes without running water! I asked three basic questions: 1. Why didn't AyA finance the construction of new pipes a long time ago by applying some kind of surcharge on new and current commercial users? 2. What is the nature of the $500,000 "donation"? Is it a donation or a loan? Will Mike Carter get the water concession? 3. Given that Manuel Antonio already has a sewer problem and this project will effectively double the amount of waste water produced, will AyA invest in constructing a treatment plant? In answer to my first question Ricardo Sancho said that AyA does not apply a special surcharge for infrastructure investmests and therefore there is no money. However, we should all note that they are able to pull almost $300,000/year from somewhere to truck water to angry business owners. This answer seems even more bizarre when we look at the answer to my second question. The $500,000 is not a donation on Mike Carter's part, it is rather a loan. They have established a trust fund to manage the money and all future commercial users must pay a special surcharge to reimburse Mike Carter! Now, if AyA can charge a special surcharge to pay Mike Carter back, why didn't they establish this surcharge years ago and do the project themselves? Why does the community have to beg developers to finance a project AyA should be doing? This is not only humiliating but it makes the community beholden to the interests of a few monied developers who are converting Manuel Antonio into one large housing project! We need a clear answer from AyA as to why water distribution in Manuel Antonio is being managed this way and it needs to be changed. In answer to my third question, Ricardo Sancho says that there are no plans to build a sewage treatment plant for Manuel Antonio and that we shouldn't bother him about it because the whole country lacks good sewage management. I pressed him. Manuel Antonio is the most important nature tourism destination in the country and sewage pollution threatens not only Manuel Antonio but the country's reputation as an ecotourism leader. His response was that Costa Rica's reputation as a nature paradise is a "fiction" anyway. This is an unacceptable position to be taken by the Executive President of AyA. He is clearly unconcerned about the mess AyA has created in Manuel Antonio and he is unwilling to solve the problem. As the arrangement with Mike Carter's trust fund shows, AyA CAN establish a special surcharge to finance infrastructure investment like a sewage treatment plant. The Manuel Antonio community must insist that AyA resolve a problem which exists ONLY because public servants like Ricardo Sancho lack the will to do anything about it. I think the newly elected mayor has the right philosophy. He suggested a moratorium on all new commercial construction until the problems of uncontrolled housing development are resolved . Good for him! Once these developers can't build their six and seven figure homes, I bet it won't be long before Ricardo Sancho and other government official find the will to maintain Manuel Antonio a natural paradise! -Matt Update I: My apologies. I neglected to mention that one of the Puntarenas Representatives in the Costa Rican Legislature, Dip. Olivier Jimenez, was also present at the meeting on Wednesday. He arrived late due to a vote in the Legislative Assembly. Although he didn't mention it during the meeting, Dip. Jimenez must be particularly interested resolving Manuel Antonio's sewage problem as quickly as possible. This because he owns a hotel right beside the Manuel Antonio National Park called Hotel Villa Bosque (www.hotelvillabosque.com). In fact, Hotel Villa Bosque sits right next to one of the most polluted streams in Manuel Antonio called the Quebrada Camaronera. I am hopeful that if AyA's Executive President Ricardo Sancho and Diputado Olivier Jimenez put their heads together, Manuel Antonio will soon be installing a long overdue sewage treatment plant! Keep visiting the blog for updates on this important topic. -Matt | 
