Water rationing to affect 250,000 San José residents until April

The Costa Rican Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) confirmed this week that it has initiated a plan to reduce the water supply to customers in various sectors of San José.

This means that some 250,000 inhabitants of the upper parts of the capital will have access to less water from this month to April, starting at 11 a.m., in periods of 6-12 hours per day.

Most affected will be those living in the high sectors of Alajuelita, Aserrí, Desamparados, Escazú, Santa Ana and Coronado.

According to reports from AyA, this year the problem of water supply could be greater than other years due to increased demand and a significant decrease in river flows during the last rainy season, when the effects of El Niño in Costa Rica caused a decline in rainfall along the Pacific coast and in the Central Valley.

The rationing plan began last weekend in communities east and north of the capital where water service was interrupted all afternoon.

“Every morning AyA storage tanks register less than 50 percent of capacity because people from the high sectors consume most of the pressure with which the water travels,” AyA official Rolando Rojas told the daily La Nación on Tuesday.

AyA does not rule out the possibility of extending rationing to June if dry conditions persist or if population does not regulate the consumption.