Summertime service cuts spur talk of 'renationalizing' Chile's for-profit water companies.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
Millions of Santiago residents were left high and quite literally dry in recent weeks by a series of water-service cuts that some Chilean citizens groups and politicians are calling a wake-up call on the perils of privatization.
The first disruption hit the Chilean capital Jan. 21-22 after flooding from a heavy rainstorm flushed copious amounts of sediment into the Rio Maipo, Santiago's principal source of drinking water. The event forced Aguas Andinas, the city's primary water-utility company, to temporarily shut three of its treatment plants and thus cut the water supply to an estimated 2 million residents. Complicating matters was the timing of the problem--at the height of the southern summer. Between December and March, daytime temperatures in Santiago regularly top 30[degrees]C (86[degrees]F).
Questions surfaced quickly about the water company's handling of the situation. Aguas Andinas, a highly profitable subsidiary of Spain-based conglomerate Grupo Agbar, defended its action by blaming the situation on "force majeure."
"No [treatment] plant in the world can function with levels of turbidity like we had yesterday in the Maipo," Christian Esquivel, the company's communications chief, told reporters. "This was neither a service issue nor an operations issues."
Esquivel's explanation did little to cool tempers among Santiago residents, business owners (some of whom were forced to shut their shops and offices for the day), and government officials, who said that Aguas Andinas--even if it had no choice but to cut the water supply--should at least have done a better job of warning people.
"We're indignant," said Juan Antonio Peribonio, Greater Santiago's government-appointed intendente (mayor). "It's common knowledge that the company ought to provide complete and useful information that allows all users to understand what's going on. That didn't happen.
The information they sent wasn't accurate. We learned about the situation in a press release. That's not how these things are supposed to work."
Aguas Andinas may eventually have been forgiven for its transgressions had it not been for a string of subsequent shutdowns, including an even larger service cut the weekend of Feb. 8-10 that affected an estimated 4 million Santiaguinos, roughly one-quarter of Chile's entire population. The company again blamed the problem on flooding in the nearby Cajon del Maipo, a mountain canyon through which the glacier-fed Rio Maipo flows.
"Indignant" after...
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