Residents in the Cerro Khun area of Playa Tamarindo, Santa Cruz, Guanacaste, are facing severe water supply issues, exacerbating concerns.
Cerro Khun, initially not designated for high-density development, finds itself in the heart of Playa Tamarindo. In recent years, tourism-centric infrastructure, coupled with a rise in residential properties, have contributed to its growth.
Prolonged water shortages prompted a neighbor to formally complain to the Aqueduct and Sewerage Institute (AyA), citing a ten-day water service outage.
Locals criticized that, despite the scarcity of water in the area, the AyA continues to grant water availability letters and the Municipality of Santa Cruz continues to issue construction permits when it cannot supply water to existing users.
Three large-scale real estate projects are currently underway in the Cerro Khun area. However, since last year, there have been reports of major difficulties with the drinking water supply.
Criticism mounts against AyA and the Santa Cruz Municipality for issuing water availability letters and construction permits despite the region’s water scarcity, further compounded by ongoing large-scale real estate ventures which are approved without any assessment of the impact on infrastructure that, according to locals, cannot sustain such a project.
The problems with the constant water shortages forced neighbors and local businesses to spend large amounts of money to hire tanker trucks to deliver drinking water.
“During the past week we paid a lot of money for water, during the morning, there was a truck at my neighbor’s house at 10 o’clock at night and a truck across the street delivering water at 6 o’clock in the morning,” explained Roger de Brick.
Representatives of several businesses have emphasized the incompetence of the AyA. They even explained that at the end of last year they removed the water meters, leaving them without the service.
“We have contacted AyA many times to report the lack of water, as have our neighbors. Whenever we are able to contact the AyA Call Center, they tell us that they have not received any local reports that there is a problem,” de Brick added.
