The North-South transfer, with which it is intended to improve the supply of almost 300,000 inhabitants and the irrigation of 28,000 hectares, taking the water from the Toa and Yateras rivers to the Guantánamo valley, will not be seen by many of the inhabitants of the province who they look forward to it. The duration of the project was estimated at 20 years when it was announced in 2019 but the most recent news indicates that even more time will have to be calculated.
According to a note in the local newspaper, Overcome, it is working with only 30% of the fuel required and the aggregates come from Santiago de Cuba and Cajobabo, which, although it is in Guantánamo, is more than 100 kilometers away, the same distance as the eastern capital of the island. Both factors, according to the director of the construction company, “delay the progress of the work”.
The official press has taken up a subject that was reported the last time, a year ago, to report the same thing: the great engineering work is advancing but at an incredibly slow pace. There is a lack of cement, fuel, equipment, lubricant and aggregates, which makes the conclusion of a project that in itself already entails long terms more than uphill.
The transfer is expected to provide 230 million cubic meters of water and, in addition to improving fish farming and saving fuel from road water transfers, it will generate 27,000 jobs and save an unknown number of tons of CO2. The inhabitants of the provincial capital city could benefit from its benefits, but also the communities of Manuel Tames, Ciro Frías, Héctor Infante, Honduras, Jamaica, Casimba, El Sigual, which will have higher quality water.
The official press has taken up a subject that was reported the last time, a year ago, to report the same thing: the great engineering work is advancing but at an incredibly slow pace.
To date, the assembly and testing of the concrete mixer plant have been carried out, which must be in operation to provide the large volumes of mix necessary, the lining of the slopes of the entrance and exit portals of the tunnels and that of those galleries.
Orlando Hernández Carralero, director of the construction company that is carrying out the work, explains, however, that there is still part of the work to be done since, although the plant produces the 400 cubic meters of concrete that it must, the warehouse, the protection wall for the hoppers and the truck loading area.
The official gave all kinds of technical details of the work and concluded by placing the number of meters that should be finished by the end of the year at 300, out of the total of 580 that the first tunnel has. But the work is monumental, as can be seen from the complete description. The main works consist of the construction of the Yateras dam (which will retain water in El Corojo, located in the municipality of Manuel Tames), five diverters, four small hydroelectric plants, 53 kilometers of canals, 16 of tunnels and 6.5 of main pipes.
Each phase should cover about five years and the total cost was estimated at 863 million pesos. With the work already started, in 2021Guantánamo experienced an extreme drought that left water reserves at 37% and caused more than 100,000 people to see their supply levels reduced from 800 liters per second to just 200, with supply cycles of up to nine days.
According to the official press, more than 200 towns in Guantanamo lack supply networks and receive water by tanker trucks, reaching 33,000 people who are forced to wait two weeks or even a month to receive the next delivery.
In addition, there are no means to store water or market it, and the province has only 11 pipes due to lack of spare parts, which makes it difficult to reach the entire population, for which reason the authorities considered the great expense of the macro project to be well spent.
A reader of the official press did not hesitate to recall that the geographer Antonio Nunez Jimenez stopped the project of a dam on the Toa river years ago due to its disastrous ecological impact. On this transfer, no environmentalist has spoken.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio He is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for accompanying us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our newspaper. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
