Last Monday, the government of Uruguay declared a water emergency for the Montevideo area and the surrounding area. This decision was taken after the supply of running water was affected by a persistent drought since May.

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Luis Lacalle PouPresident of Uruguay, said that this decision has been made “to have faster and easier legal processes” about a work that makes another source of drinking water possible. In addition, he said that all decisions are made based on a no rain scenario.

According to the president, a reservoir and infrastructure with pipelines will be built on the San José River. An investment of USD 20 million is planned for this project. “Work on the reservoir starts tomorrow. The (National Administration of State Sanitary Works) OSE has already commissioned the pipe for Brazil in this case and a plastic pipeline for Argentina and we will receive certain images of it every week”detailed, collects a note from EFE.

Pou said that the maximum period foreseen to complete this work is 30 days and that after that it will be announced whether, as a result of the integration of this source, the quality of the water supplied “it is deteriorating or something is changing”.

On the other hand, the president assured that it will exempt bottled water from taxes implying some resolutions through decree and others through legislation, through a project that the executive will send to the legislature this Tuesday.

This measure is added to that of guarantee a free supply of two liters of water per day -without the elevated level of sodium and chlorine present in the current ones supplied by OSE in Montevideo and surroundings- for hospitals and other care centers for the elderly, children and young people in vulnerable situations. Initially this is planned until July.

The Ministry of Health, together with medical chairs, surveyed the population of Montevideo in May “avoid adding salt to food” because of the elevated sodium content in tap water.

days later, bottled water sales tripled hand-in-hand with the forecast of imminent depletion of reserves due to droughtwhich caused alarm among the population and motivated the organization of several mobilizations and protests in the capital.