DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

Many of the highest government officials are from the city of Santiago de los Caballeros and the Cibao region. So it is not strange that the new Environment Minister Orlando Jorge Mera announced that the clean up of the Yaque del Norte River that crisscrosses Santiago’s city is one of the Abinader government’s top priorities.

The Yaque del Norte River is probably the most valuable water asset in the Dominican Republic. Its waters are piped to the country’s largest cities and irrigate farmlands from Santiago de los Caballeros to Montecristi where it joins the Atlantic Ocean. This is an area where large banana, plantain, melon and rice farms are located.

Yet today, the important river is highly contaminated, the result of decades of the negligence of the authorities and lack of environmental awareness of the population. The Santiago Development Plan calls for the cleanup of...