A Cuban Town Improves Water Quality Through Desalination — Global Issues

by Alvaro Queiruga (bayamo, cuba)Monday, September 09, 2024Inter Press Service

It was actually a optimistic change, due to a desalination plant that began working in August, 5 years after development started in 2019, with a US$ 61,000 funding by the Granma Provincial Delegation of Hydraulic Assets.

“We did a take a look at and the water coming from the plant freezes clear, whereas the water from the road freezes white, due to impurities. Now, with the plant, the persons are blissful,” neighborhood consultant Rodolfo Echavarría, 55, informed IPS.

Las Mangas is a part of the municipality of Bayamo, the provincial capital, some 740 kilometres east of Havana. It has water networks that carry water from a nicely to the connections within the homes.

Nonetheless, the water supply incorporates a salinity charge exceeding one gram of soluble salts per litre of water, the restrict permitted for human consumption by the nation’s well being authorities.

“The desalination plant was constructed on the outlet of this brackish nicely, serving as an quick access level (the place folks can fetch the processed liquid with containers),” defined Yasser Vázquez, deputy sub-delegate of the Water Assets Delegation in Granma, in an interview with IPS in Bayamo.

The brand new facility, the third of its type within the province, processes 2,000 litres of water a day and, in response to the planners’ estimates, advantages 1,097 inhabitants. Echavarría believes that quantity rises to virtually 2,000 folks, for the reason that villages of El Chungo, La Bayamesa and Santa María, all greater than three kilometres from Las Mangas, additionally profit.

The plant’s purification system makes use of the reverse osmosis methodology, one of the crucial widespread globally. There are others akin to distillation, freezing, hydrate formation, flash evaporation or electrodialysis.

Reverse osmosis entails making use of stress to brackish water and making it circulation via a semi-permeable membrane whose function is to permit the solvent (water) to move via, however not the solute (dissolved salts).

In essence, the water in a pressurised saline answer is separated from the dissolved salts because it passes via the membrane after which goes via additional rounds of filtration and chemical injection till it reaches the required requirements of potability.

An area resident, Yoel González, 52, was educated to function the plant and is answerable for its upkeep.

“It’s a must to know the way it works, as a result of there are issues that may go unsuitable, as has occurred. I’ve lived all my life in Las Mangas and the most effective factor that has occurred right here is that this (the set up of the desalination plant). Water has at all times been troublesome. We used to drink that brackish water, and you would style the acid and salt in it,” he informed IPS.

A change of surroundings, or slightly, of waters

On this village eight kilometres from town of Bayamo, between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm, when the desalination plant opens, folks collect on the web site’s solely present faucet and fill various-sized containers.

The water popping out of the faucet in each house or facility in Las Mangas, the brackish water that hardly comes out of the nicely chlorinated, is simply used for cleansing, dishes, laundry and typically cooking. On this agricultural and livestock farming village, some farmers additionally use it to quench their animals’ thirst.

“When the plant was arrange, folks mentioned at first: ‘I drink it from the road, I have been ingesting all of it my life and I have never died’. Cubans are like that. However after they tried the brand new one, every part modified,” argued Echavarría, the neighborhood chief.

Nancy Gómez, 72, was born there and is without doubt one of the few individuals who resists the change.

“The neighbours are shocked as a result of I do not search for contemporary water, however I am used to it and it has by no means triggered me any well being issues. My kids grew up ingesting that (brackish) water. However my granddaughter does carry it from the plant for the youngsters and I drink it infrequently. You possibly can style the distinction,” she informed IPS.

Oscar Fajardo, 50, has at all times averted ingesting water from the nicely since he moved to Las Mangas 4 years in the past from Guasimilla, eight kilometres away.

In his house city, the water tasted contemporary and “candy”, so he by no means acquired used to the brand new saltiness. Even after transferring away, Fajardo nonetheless fetched it in Guasimilla on his electrical bike every time he visited his mom.

“I might search for water there or somewhere else. Typically I needed to drink the unhealthy one, however after seeing the sediment that amassed within the knobs and pots, I attempted to keep away from it. Folks right here have tailored to ingesting brackish water, however just a few discovered other ways,” he informed IPS.

Whereas it was frequent to boil and drink the faucet water, some individuals who knew higher or had more cash would go to Bayamo or El Chungo to fill their very own family containers, or purchase the liquid from homeowners of horse-drawn carts, who would promote 200 litres for the equal of US$ 0.40.

“The desalination plant is a superb profit, a marvel. If one thing as needed as water is just not good, think about the harm it causes to well being,” mentioned Fajardo.

Risks of salinated water

The dangers of consuming water with extra salt are diversified: upset abdomen, dehydration, hypertension, fluid retention within the physique or kidney harm.

In spite of everything, salt incorporates, along with the chloride electrolyte, sodium, a mineral dangerous to the human physique in some ways when ingested in massive portions.

The World Well being Organisation (WHO) recommends an consumption of not more than 5 grams of salt per day, equal to 2 grams (2000 mg) of sodium.

González, the operator of the Las Mangas desalination plant, mentioned the neighborhood has a number of circumstances of kidney stones (additionally referred to as nephrolithiasis or urolithiasis), that are arduous deposits fabricated from minerals and salts that kind contained in the kidneys and might have an effect on any a part of the urinary tract.

They could have arisen from extended consumption of brackish water, as a number of villagers interviewed by IPS suspect.

“One in every of my kids complains when he urinates due to the stones, and he will get renal colics on a regular basis,” mentioned Gómez, the resident who’s reluctant to drink the water processed by the plant.

Marisol Hildago, 37, additionally a resident of Las Mangas and mom of two, used to drink faucet water till one thing triggered her to begin on the lookout for water from El Chungo.

“My father suffered from persistent renal insufficiency and that is why I began to search for water there. Now we solely drink water from the plant and my father has improved,” she informed IPS.

Water points within the province

Las Mangas is just not the one neighborhood in Granma with water-related points. There are others the place the subsurface basins and water sources have excessive ranges of salinity, which regularly obtain ingesting water from tanker vehicles.

Granma, often called the ‘Key to the Cauto’ (river), the place the longest watercourse in all of the Antilles flows at 343 kilometres, additionally has a low-isometric aid and boggy areas, which makes it extra susceptible to seawater encroachment and saline intrusion into the water desk, as occurs in Las Mangas and different locations.

Some students declare that the river’s circulation has decreased partially because of local weather change, deforestation and the development of the Cauto del Paso reservoir, the third largest within the nation and inaugurated in 1992.

With the decreasing of the river degree, seawater encroaches with larger power via the course itself, affecting the water basins of some lands on the mouth of the Cauto.

This province with 804,000 folks – in a rustic with a inhabitants of 10 million – has had a secure water scenario with its provide sources for the reason that heavy rains of June 2023, which, along with filling reservoirs and restoring the water desk, destroyed a part of the infrastructure.

Granma typically suffers from droughts which, in response to water authorities, have an effect on as much as 100,000 of its inhabitants.

When this occurs, river circulation decreases and saline intrusion from the ocean will increase, disabling quite a few wells, particularly the shallower, artisanal ones, that are an answer for residents in locations which might be troublesome to entry.

The opposite main downside lies within the accessibility of water networks and the supply of the service, as solely 76% of the province’s inhabitants receives piped water of their houses and solely 38.7% (some 310,000 folks) obtain water at house a minimum of as soon as each three days.

Different extra affected areas, such because the coastal municipality of Manzanillo, can get water provides for as much as 20 days. In all, greater than 66,000 residents are equipped by water tankers.

An extra 15 desalination crops are deliberate for Granma, to be added to the handfuls present all through the nation. Within the final decade, the Cuban authorities has promoted the development of those hydraulic works, each in communities with salinised water sources and in industries and seaside resorts.

© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal supply: Inter Press Service

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