Just Water Allocation in the Dulcepamba Watershed
Current Reflections - January/February 2017
Sharing a final drink with our viejo before he is burned
A cop viejo on a busy corner
Hello from Ecuador!
I'll start with a quick note on New Years:
The New Years celebrations here are far superior to those in the U.S. They include many traditions like running around the block with your empty suitcases at midnight to fill the new year with travels and adventures, and wearing red underwear if you want to improve your love life in the next year. But the most popular tradition is to make life-sized dummies of various cartoon characters, unpopular politicians, and authority figures. These are called "viejos" (old men), and they represent the old year. The viejos are burned at midnight in large bonfires in the streets, and it is tradition to jump over the burning viejos into the new year.
Ecuador is generally a very socially conservative country, but during the day of New Years Eve, the men dress in full drag. They hold ropes across the streets so that cars have to stop, and then they dance for the travelers for coins. They are the "viudas" (widows) who have lost their viejos (old men who represent the old year).
The idea that the widows have to dance and beg for money now that their men are gone is quite antiquated, but seeing the normally manly, machismo men in drag dancing in the streets and going ALL OUT in their act is quite a sight to see!
Jumping over burning viejos into the new year
This is how we brought in the new year: burning all the hardship of 2016, leaping over the flames hand-in-hand, and redoubling our commitments to the work that lies ahead. We are equipped and ready to take on all of the challenges that 2017 has to offer.
We had to stop for so many viudas dancing in the streets on New Years Eve day that what should have been a 7 hour drive took 10 hours!
More viudas
Even some U.S. political figures were burned with the old year here... But not all viejos are villains
Water Wars:
To date, we have initiated and are in various stages of the water adjudication process for over 140 families and counting across 20 small rural communities in the Dulcepamba Watershed.
Why is this important? Here in Ecuador, the State owns all of the water. In order to appropriate water usage, the State grants adjudications to individuals or entities from particular water sources (springs, wells, streams, or rivers) at a particular flow rate (liters or cubic meters per second).
The Constitution of Ecuador guarantees the Human Right to Water to all Ecuadorians (Art. 12), free of any charge —and prioritizes water for domestic use, agricultural activities that support Food Sovereignty (water for farm animals, aquaculture, and small-scale irrigation), and environmental flows above all industrial uses. However, this Water Right can only be guaranteed once the user “perfects” that right by demonstrating their need for use and/or current use and applying for their water right (or adjudication).
In 2014, Ecuador changed the water law, adding hefty fines for users who do not have, or are in the process of applying for, their adjudications. The law also requires the National Secretariat of Water (SENAGUA) to establish water balances in each watershed in order to base water allocation on true availability. In many cases (including the Dulcepamba watershed), SENAGUA has yet to conduct the necessary studies.
The new water law also makes it so that all water adjudications have expiration dates (20 years for domestic use, and 10 years for both agricultural activities and industrial use), whereas before, certain rights like hydroelectric water rights, could be for “forever". These changes in the law, the general pattern of increasing water scarcity, and growing demand for extractive uses of water (mining, petroleum, bottling, hydroelectric) make it more important than ever for users to secure their Rights by adjudicating water.
In cities and larger towns, water utilities are responsible for all processes necessary to keep the jurisdiction’s water adjudication active and
In cities like Quito, water utilities are responsible for keeping their water adjudications active and up-to-date
Moisés Nina, President of his community's Water Board, helps us measure their water source, a spring high up in the Andes. His community of Santa Teresita is a Quichua indigenous community located near the top of the Dulcepamba Watershed.
up-to-date, so individual residents do not have to be involved. But, in rural areas where individuals or small collectives build their own tanks and install hoses to carry water to their houses and fields, they must go through the water adjudication process in order to secure their Right.
The water adjudication process has proven to be long and arduous, including the following:
SENAGUA engineer (white hat) takes notes for a SENAGUA onsite inspection as Darwin Paredes (in blue), Ian Reichardt (in yellow), and Undushi resident, Cesar Arteaga (in gray) measure the water flowing from a spring that the Ateaga family uses in their home.
Similarly, private businesses like Hidrotambo (the hydroelectric company threatening farmers' water rights where we work) must go through the process of securing their water adjudication in order to use water for industrial production. When there is a conflict over who gets the priority right to water, the Secretariat of Water (SENAGUA), which grants water adjudications, must refer to the Priority Rights to Water enshrined in the Ecuadorian Constitution. (Water for domestic use, animals, irrigation at a small-scale, and environmental flows have priority over industrial use) But, the law says that as long as one has initiated the process with SENAGUA, one cannot be fined for the water they are consuming and using.
The good news is, Hidrotambo’s water adjudication obtained in 2003 has to be renewed (they are on a 10 year renewal cycle). Their original adjudication was based on no real data demonstrating water availability, and was for a quantity of water that does NOT EVEN EXIST in the river during much of the dry season.
Where as it is taking anywhere from 1 to 4+ years for residents to go through the water adjudication process due to frankly unacceptable delays in SENAGUA, Hidrotambo’s renewal process has been fast-tracked: They started their process in November 2016, and all they have left to do is the SENAGUA inspection before they are granted their renewal.
Working with the Garces family to measure their water source. They use this source for domestic use, farm animals, and to irrigate pasture for cattle in the dry season. Their adjudication is one of the ones that Hidrotambo has pledged to oppose.
…But Hidrotambo has the same idea: Several weeks ago we were in the SENAGUA offices looking through the file of one of our applicants, and we found an opposition written by Hidrotambo to one of our farmers’ adjudication applications. In their opposition, Hidrotambo explained in detail how much they claim they have invested in their works, how much they are supposedly benefitting the country, and how granting this farmer his water adjudication would jeopardize their operation. Since then, we have learned that they plan to submit oppositions to ALL water adjudication applications requesting the Right to water from the larger tributaries to the Dulcepamba River just above their works.
Hidrotambo is of course free to make their case to SENAGUA about how they need the water to run their turbines, but if SENAGUA avoids or denies water adjudications to local residents based on Hidrotambo’s objections, they will be neglecting their duty to respect the Prioritization of Water Rights according to the Constitution.
SENAGUA did not respond to our complaint within the required 15 days. So, our team, one of our lawyers, and several of the directly effected farmers made the
3.5 hour drive to the SENAGUA executive offices in
Guayaquil (the biggest city in Ecuador) for an in-person meeting.
"The Water Law benefits us all" - This sign hangs prominently in the stairway leading up to the SENAGUA offices in Guaranda
As part of their water adjudication application, Hidrotambo is legally obligated to perform a hydrologic study to establish hydrographs and water balance estimates for the watershed. They must use these data to demonstrate how much water is truly available after domestic, small-scale farming, and environmental flow uses have been satisfied. No such study was done in 2003, and no such study has been done this time around either. We, therefore, have done this study (over the past 3.5 years), and have explained it to SENAGUA in a complaint we submitted at the end of November in anticipation of Hidrotambo's pending renewal. In our complaint, we encourage SENAGUA to use our studies to help make more informed decisions about how much water to give to Hidrotambo, while respecting higher priority Rights.
We spent two days driving to communities all over the watershed collecting over 70 signatures from community representatives in support of our complaint.
We presented an opposition to Hidrotambo's water adjudication renewal backed by 70 campesino representatives from all over the watershed-- these are their signatures
We met with Alexander Espinoza, Director of Water Resources, who is one of the top SENAGUA engineers in the country, and two SENAGUA lawyers. We gave a brief explanation of our concerns regarding Hidrotambo, and explained that we have spent 3.5 years conducting many of the studies in the Dulcepamba Watershed that are necessary to calculate water availability, water demand, and flood risk… And for the first time, instead of acting threatened and defensive, a top SENAGUA engineer showed serious interest in our work.
As of our meeting, SENAGUA suspended Hidrotambo's water adjudication application process and opened a full investigation based on our complaint.
Three weeks later, Alexander Espinoza came to San Pablo de Amalí to talk directly with the people affected, and begin to review our data. Several of his staff members came the following week to conduct a full-day onsite inspection of the hydroelectric works with both us and several members of the management team at Hidrotambo. We are now in the midst of preparing more data and models to send to SENAGUA for review as part of their investigation. This is YUGE for us, so we'll let you know how it goes!
School classroom, San Pablo de Amalí-- Alexander Espinoza, Director Water Resources, SENAGUA (on the right in yellow) listens as representatives from various communities all over the watershed share their concerns for their water Rights.
SENAGUA engineers (on right with blue and white baseball hats) listen while Hidrotambo engineer, Franklin Pico (white sun hat) desperately tries to defend their lack of hydrological studies to Rachel Conrad (pink shirt) during SENAGUA's onsite investigation.
In general, we are very heartened by our progress. We have collected and analyzed enough data, and put enough pressure on so that both SENAGUA and Hidrotambo are paying us serious attention. We don't know how SENAGUA's investigation will end, but we feel we have a rock-solid case to secure farmers' water Rights, which has been the ultimate goal from the beginning!
Look out for emails with links to more updates in the coming weeks, and as always, please ask us questions, share any advise or resources you have, donate to our effort, and let us know what you'd like to hear more about.
Over and out,
The Dulcepamba Team