Try to imagine the following situations. Scenario A: You are thirsty and want to drink water, but when you turn on the faucet there is nothing. Scenario B: You want to bathe with cold water, also to combat temperatures above 30°C every day, but nothing comes out of the shower. Scenario C: You want to moisturize your face to feel a little fresh in the dryness of summer, and the kitchen and bathroom faucets only have air. Scenario D: You are an elderly person and since you need to drink fluids, you need to use your money to pay for the service and buy bottled water. Scenario E: Your baby is dirty and you want to bathe him but can’t at any time of the day.
All of these postcards – among many others – are not possible for the residents of the La Cumbre neighborhood in San Carlos.
As in previous years, frontline members once again report spending hours – even days – in their homes without a single drop of water. The situation, which occurs sporadically in winter, worsens in summer, when temperatures rise above 30 degrees every day and water becomes an essential resource.
“To bathe, we get water in canisters at gas stations 137 and 32. Not a drop comes out of the taps.”
Monica neighbor of La Cumbre
Despair is compounded by anger: According to neighbors, the service provider Aguas Bonaerenses SA (ABSA) is not responding to countless complaints.
The Summit thus complements the service’s problem map, which covers various areas. For example, in Villa Castells, where the water is unfit for consumption, there is a lack of pressure and complaints arise because the barrels that the company has to supply are never enough.
“It’s been years. They don’t come. And when they come, they say they’re working and leave. This has been happening for ten years. It’s not now. You can’t even fill the cistern. Now it’s increasing. I pay around $20,000 for a service we don’t have,” Daniel Tamagnini, a frontman, told this newspaper.
What should be done then? Mónica, a resident of the city, said: “I buy water in the supermarket. To swim we go to gas stations 137 and 32 with cans. Not a drop comes out of the taps. Almost the entire 32nd Avenue is affected and there is no water on the sides either,” said the neighbor.
The residents of this central area of La Cumbre expressed in a joint complaint that this was not an exceptional problem. “It is a structural crisis linked to a lack of investment and lack of maintenance of the network,” explained a spokesman for the neighborhood.
Regarding the repeated complaints to ABSA, the frontists insist that, despite their insistence, they are not receiving answers or concrete solutions.
They also agreed that it was “inhumane” to live without water in the middle of summer. In this scenario, they demand a fundamental solution.
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