Cuba Trucking In Water To Millions As Drought Worsens
BY MARC FRANK
Reuters.com
Mon Aug 17, 2015
Cuba put its civil defense system on alert on Monday due to a year-long drought that is forecast to worsen in the coming months and has already damaged agriculture and left more than a million people relying on trucked-in water.
From Cuba’s famous cigars to sugar, vegetables, rice, coffee and beans, the drought is damaging crops. It has slowed planting and left one in 10 residents waiting for government tank trucks to survive in record summer heat.
The country’s civil defense system said the drought, record heat and water leakage have led to “low levels of available water for the population, agriculture, industry and services.”
The government has not provided a national breakdown of drought damage but it said on Monday that emergency measures were being taken at all levels, including stricter rationing of water through the state-run waterworks.
Communist-run Cuba loses around 50 percent of the water pumped from its reservoirs due to leaks. There is little irrigation of farm land and the systems that exist are outdated and inefficient.
Drought conditions across the Caribbean, caused by the phenomenon known as El Nino, have left reservoirs at 37 percent of capacity.
Cuban authorities appear increasingly alarmed by the situation, which could lead to wider rationing in major cities and hard choices on where water should be allocated with winter planting, the tourism season and sugar milling all beginning in November.
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