The Mayor’s Office of Bogota has announced sanctions for the misuse of water, as the capital of Colombia experiences restrictions in the service, due to the drought situation. A few days before the beginning of the 24-hour water cut in sectors of the city, the local mayor announced that his administration would impose economic sanctions on those citizens who use water unnecessarily.
To this end, the government of Bogota has two channels for citizens to generate a report that will allow the authorities to penalise those who waste water.
Water restrictions in Bogota, Colombia
Since April 11, Bogota has been experiencing scheduled water supply restrictions. Divided into nine sectors, water supply cuts have been established for 24 hours every 10 days in each of these zones.
The measure affects both the capital and the peripheral cities that are fed by the reservoirs that are part of the Chingaza system, located in the east of Bogota, which has now reached the lowest levels of reserves since it began service in 1984.
The current reserves pose a serious threat to the water service in the Colombian capital, after six months of prolonged drought, aggravated by the El Niño phenomenon. The authorities hope that with this rationing, and above all with the arrival of the rains expected at the end of this month, the water service can be guaranteed, although the restrictions seem likely to last for months.
Objective: to save water
Faced with this scenario, Mayor Carlos Galan has repeatedly called on citizens to save now. The established goal is to reach a usage rate of 15 cubic meters per second, something that, with the restrictions alone, has not yet been achieved.
“After the weekend, consumption remains below the city’s normal average. Yesterday, April 14, consumption was 16.01 cubic meters per second. The goal is 15. We need to consume less water,” the mayor wrote on his social networks. Galan announced that Bogota’s reservoirs are today at 15.76% and that the goal at the end of this month is to reach 20%.
Among the mayor’s recommendations to citizens in recent days is to reduce shower time to 3 minutes, not to wash cars, windows, or facades and not to accumulate more water than is necessary for the basics. Among the suggestions, Galan went so far as to ask citizens to shower in pairs and to collect rainwater in buckets.
However, media have recently reported instances of the misuse of water resources by some citizens. Given this, the mayor’s office has decided to impose fines on people who waste water. To this end, the local government has set up complaint channels that citizens can use to bring these incidents to the attention of the authorities.
Fines of more than one million pesos
Following the provisions of Article 100 of the National Code of Security and Citizen Coexistence, behaviors contrary to coexistence and that threaten the proper use of water resources are specified, which will be punished with warnings ranging from a fine of 694,000 pesos to 1,213,000 pesos in case of recidivism.
To report these facts, the Mayor’s Office makes two channels available to citizens: an email and a WhatsApp chat.
“Remember that if the activity is carried out by a member of a condominium or a commercial establishment, the administrator may be sanctioned and the economic activity may be suspended, as the case may be,” concludes the Mayor’s Office.
British Ambassador joins the campaign
With a video uploaded to the official account, the British ambassador, George Hodgson, wanted to participate in the public call to save water. Hodgson has shown how water is saved in the embassy he heads in Bogota.
“Minimizing the waste of water when washing dishes and reusing it to water the plants. Waiting to fill the washing machine. Turning off the faucet while brushing our teeth. Listening to a short song in the shower to minimize time,” the ambassador says in the video.
Hodgson also calls for postponing pet bathing and car washing, while joining Bogotá’s “Juntos por el agua (Together for Water)” slogan.
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