Faced with a decline in rainfall for more than ten years, several municipalities in rural areas are facing significant water shortages with rationing. This scenario could soon affect…

International reporting

Chile: an increasingly critical water shortage in rural areas

Audio 02:38

Dead fish on the shore of Lake Peñuelas, a reservoir in the Valparaíso region, on March 18, 2022. A record drought has been affecting Chile for several years now.

By: Naila Derroisné

3 mins

Faced with a decline in rainfall for more than ten years, several municipalities in rural areas are facing significant water shortages with rationing.

This scenario could soon affect the capital Santiago and its 8 million inhabitants.

Global warming is singled out, but not only.

From our correspondent in Santiago,

In Petorca, a municipality in central Chile, the river that crosses the valley is completely dry.

Margarita Guerrero and her family live very close to the village and they have not had running water for more than eight years.

“

Here there are no wells, there is nothing.
Before, there was water flowing nearby, but because of the drought and the mine next door, everything is dry now,

she laments.

So the authorities send us tankers.
We have about 100
liters of water per day per person, but it's really not much.

So as not to waste a drop, Margarita reuses all the wastewater from the house.

“

When I do the dishes, I have a hose that goes to the plants.
I do the same for the water in the washing machine and for the bathroom sink.
Nothing should go to waste
!

Privatization of water by the Chilean Constitution

For more than 10 years, Chile has been hit by a severe drought that does not allow groundwater to regenerate.

But for Nicolas Quiroz, member of the movement for the recovery of Water and Territories, the problems of access and distribution of water in Chile are mainly due to the neoliberal system guaranteed by the current Constitution, written under the dictatorship “

The 1980 Constitution privatizes water and converts it into a commodity that can be grabbed, bought, rented, sold.
So there is a water market.

And according to him, this system of water privatization creates deep inequalities.

“

The big winners are those who have economic power and can buy water rights and dig wells,

” continues Nicolas Quiroz.

It is therefore the agro-industry, the mining sector, the large dam projects… They are the ones who have monopolized the water of Petorca because they are the owners of the majority of the rights to the water on the surface and underground.

A lack of political accountability

Maria Fragkou, director of the geography department at the University of Chile, is very critical of the discourse that makes drought an almost normal phenomenon in the country.

“

The dominant vision is to say that drought is responsible for water scarcity.
We do not wonder why there is no more water

or who consumes the most

In this way, the responsibility of people, institutions, laws, legislative frameworks with regard to water depletion is masked.
So there is no political responsibility.

In the capital, if it does not rain enough in the coming months, thousands of people could then be affected by cuts and water rationing.

International report - Chile: an increasingly critical water shortage in rural areas

Chile: an increasingly critical water shortage in rural areas

Privatization of water by the Chilean Constitution

A lack of political accountability

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