The directory of SBI It met every Wednesday. But, the situation of the water deficit It became an emergency and now the meetings of the highest hierarchies of the state company are held every day. With the barriers of the comptroller and the bureaucracy raised so as not to call for bids (something that the Presidency approved by decree), the board of directors meets to evaluate and approve purchases: from large works to pipe fitting pieces. The objective is to launch several emergency works to bring fresh water an alternative source to make it drinkable and continue supplying Montevideo and the metropolitan area with the Current sodium and chloride levels.
Since June 26, the machines of the construction company Cujó works in the Buschental area, in San José, to build an earthen embankment that will function as a dike. The objective is to retain fresh water from the San José River. The work will allow the water level to accumulate in a section of the river and, therefore, rise. About 10 kilometers away, in Punta de Valdéz, OSE will another work to take and pump water from the river which will run, in turn, for a third work, which is the placement of almost 14 kilometers of pipelines to Belastiquí.
The summary seems simple. But the works required different urgent approvals from the OSE board of directors (which is working in a permanent session and with daily meetings to approve purchases) and the disbursement of at least about US$ 35 million to complete all the works and maintain the current water quality.
20 kilometers of pipeline: US$ 14,308,112
On June 20, the president, vice president, and director of OSE approved the purchase of 20 kilometers of pipeline from the Brazilian company Gobain Canalizacao Limitada. The import can generate a bottleneck in the construction of the work that is subject to the arrival of the pipes in Uruguay. Total, the state company spent US$ 14,308,112 on 2,858 iron pipes. The total includes lubricating paste, insurance and import costs.
The board justified the purchase on the need to acquire the pipe to capture raw water from the San José river, at the height of Route 45, to push it to the place Belastiquí (another emergency dam that was carried out last month) and that this fresh water runs to the Aguas Corrientes water treatment plant.
Placement and pumping: U$S 12:491,783
Two days later, on June 22, the Construction Chamber presented to the OSE board of directors a proposal to build the works between six companies (Espina, Cujó, Teyma, Stiler, Ciemsa and Saceem) for a total of US$12:491,783. That same day the heads of the state company approved it.
The purchase from the Chamber of Construction included the construction of a water reserve lagoon of 10,000 cubic meters on a piece of land located 1.2 kilometers from the water intake and two plastic pipes to move the water from the intake of the San José river, in Paso de Valdéz, towards the reserve lagoon. The companies were also contracted to lay almost 14 kilometers of pipes to Belastiquí (not including the pipes, whose importation from Brazil had already been approved).
The Construction Chamber explained that The placement of the pipes will be done on Route 45 and on the Camino a la Paloma. “The replacement costs of pavements have not been considered. On Route 45, the placement of the pipeline has been considered immediately after the shoulder is finished,” they stressed in the proposal. The purchase also included, for example, the generators to run the river intake pumps and the 26 thousand liters of diesel oil consumed per day to function. The pumps were a loan from the owner of the ranch Gaucho.
The OSE board justified the purchases before the “Total depletion of the Canelón Grande reserve and the almost imminent depletion of Paso Severino” and that “given the technical evidence of a substantial change forecast in the coming months, the Administration cannot delay the development of the proposed solution due to sufficiently proven reasons of urgency.”
On loan to The Observer
Map of OSE works in San José
Construction of the dike in Buschental: US$ 711,247
After having purchased the pipes and the works from the Chamber of Construction, the following day, June 23, OSE approved the work to build the starting point of the entire project: the dam at the height of Buschental, in San José.
The construction company Cujó was awarded the direct purchase for US$ 711,247 to build an earth embankment that works as a dam and can damm the fresh water of the river to make the intake in Punta de Valdéz. This work began last Monday June 26 and is expected to It will take 10-12 days to be finished. This time, OSE also justified the purchase based on the amount of reserves and argued that the work is necessary due to the “critical decrease in the volumes of the raw water reserve reservoirs for production and subsequent water supply to the Metropolitan System”.
The entire project was going to take 30 days, as announced by the president, Luis Lacalle Pou. However, just as reported The Observer, the six construction companies that are in charge of the works committed to OSE to finish these works in two months and not in one as announced by the president.
The deadline was set at OSE board of directors resolutions that approved the works and the purchase of the pipes to Argentina and Brazil and to which it agreed The Observer. The proposal of the Construction Chamber The works were executed between July and August.
