What Would it Take / To Pull Up Stakes ? (Water Shortage)

chico bill

chico bill

Dogs Better than People
May 6, 2016
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bob saunders said:
California has been building a train track to nowhere for 15 plus years and the DR built a metro through a crowded city in much less time. Building a dam here would go through the environmental process quicker and be built quicker as well.
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California is a train wreck. That high speed rail project will never be finished. I got a job offer to work as an engineering right of way specialist on that project in 2015. Pay was $150K plus housing offset and relocation.
But I was ending the end of my working career and didn't want to end it with such a loser of a project nor live in frighin' Fresno.

And you are right the environmental process there is ridiculous. DR doesn't seem to require them - at least not the Sosua Beach renovations
 
JD Jones

JD Jones

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At the risk of sounding like a broken record, they publicize every project they're working on throughout the country on their social pages.

If you don't follow them, it's easy to think they're not doing anything.
 
O

Olly

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Mar 12, 2007
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Lucas61 said:
How about social turmoil due to price gouging (trucked water) because water is limited and demand exceeds supply? Call this a foreshadowing of the future . . .

As far as I can tell, drinking water aside, the water that is necessary for daily functioning: bathing, the toilet, washing dishes and clothes, cleaning, etc. come in two forms in the D.R. One is that you have a well (cisterna) where water is always available IF the water table is sufficient. The other is that the water is supplied by the city and you have a faucet (llave) that you connect to your pump (bomba) to fill your tenaco. In this scenario, the water is not always available and comes at only certain times. That being the case it is mandatory that when the water does come, that you fill your tenaco and other containers (emergency supply).

For us, where we presently have lived for three years in Zona Colonia, Avenida Mella, a main business street, the water ALWAYS comes on Sunday and Thursday. If you plan accordingly, no problem. Until now. Today is the second Sunday that the water that always came, didn't come. This means water once per week. And that means that if it doesn't come the second time, we're in trouble.

Is anyone else having water shortage problems? Are their credible government entities that address this problem?
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There is a third source of water other than the tow you mention. It is called RAIN. We have installed a Temporary system that fills both the cistern and pool. The recent rainfall here in Perla Marina gave us about 6,000 Gallons from 3.5 inches of rainfall. topped up the pool and cistern.
most of the other Carribean Islands rely on Rainwater catchment and large cisterns. Most people here could do the same !

There are a number of threads on DR1 about the water problems on the north coast.

Olly
 
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Astucia

Astucia

Papa de Negrita
Oct 19, 2013
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chico bill said:
And all the leaks that go unfixed. I've seen more water wasted than used in Los Cerros. A water tank with fist size rust holes that when the tank is filled it blows out like a cartoon.
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Driving in Santiago today - 2 huge "geysers" on Feb 17 and on the road to Gurabo. Both areas were drenched - so it must have been hours and hours. No repair going on at either of them
 
K

Kipling333

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Jan 12, 2010
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What would it take to pull up stakes?? I could not live as some people here do,without decent water and electricity supplies. If I thought it was a short term thing , then I might hang around a bit longer but in reality I can not see any major action to solve the problem no matter what JDJones says. I ,personally do not have a major problem with lack of regular water but my showers and my swimming pool are very popular with my friends who live in areas where lack of water has been a problem for many years . The fact that every house in many areas of La Romana must buy a pump to get some meager supplies of water into their storage tanks is a real turn off . Of course most people do not have the option of pulling up stakes .
To deal with the problem a gigantic dam must be built somewhere in a high rainfall area somewhere on the island , not just a few small projects .It is a massice undertaking but has to be done.
Finally a question. Some years ago huge pipes were laid out and buried alongside the Autopista between Boca Chica and San Pedro ..were these for water from the Higuano River to Santo Domingo Este ??
 
Fulano2

Fulano2

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cavok said:
To live here, you really need a well, large cistern, and a pump/accumulator system for water. For electric, some people can get by with inverters, but I would have to buy a backup generator for the power outages.
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You are 100% right! What is the problem having a well?
A 100.000 pesos and Bob is your uncle.
 
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cavok

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Jun 16, 2014
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Water shortages have been a problem for decades and will continue to be for decades more the way the DR is growing. The government has been behind the power curve on this and that's not going to change anytime soon. If you're short on water, bite the bullet and drill a well.
 
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XTraveller

Well-known member
Aug 21, 2010
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Kipling333 said:
What would it take to pull up stakes?? I could not live as some people here do,without decent water and electricity supplies. If I thought it was a short term thing , then I might hang around a bit longer but in reality I can not see any major action to solve the problem no matter what JDJones says. I ,personally do not have a major problem with lack of regular water but my showers and my swimming pool are very popular with my friends who live in areas where lack of water has been a problem for many years . The fact that every house in many areas of La Romana must buy a pump to get some meager supplies of water into their storage tanks is a real turn off . Of course most people do not have the option of pulling up stakes .
To deal with the problem a gigantic dam must be built somewhere in a high rainfall area somewhere on the island , not just a few small projects .It is a massice undertaking but has to be done.
Finally a question. Some years ago huge pipes were laid out and buried alongside the Autopista between Boca Chica and San Pedro ..were these for water from the Higuano River to Santo Domingo Este ??
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These pipes are for Gas.
 
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windeguy

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The house I bought was built 30 plus years ago. It came with a 5,000 gallon cistern, a Meyers pump that still runs today and a pressure tank along with a battery inverter system in the pump room just for the pump, This is a problem that is generational. The pressure was good for over 10 yeas and then fell off until now it is about 5 lbs from CORAAPPLATA. They have been replaced by a deep well.
 
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MariaRubia

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Jun 25, 2019
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The situation in SD Este is terrible. In Riviera Colonial where some of my family live, there are 200 apartments which were heavily rented to AirBnB's. Caasd used to send water every day, but now it's once a week, if that. So there is water rationing, the water is turned on only between 7am and 9am, then from 6pm to 10pm. Which has completely emptied the Airbnb's as nobody wants to stay in an apartment where you can't have a shower when you want one. And now Caasd is saying the only solution is to dig a well, and the complex has to pay. And nobody wants to pay because all these AirBnB owners say they are losing money. Half of the apartments are up for sale now and the place is like the Marie Celeste. This stuff is serious.

To me part of the problem is what you pay for water in Santo Domingo. The most I have ever paid is about RD$ 500 a month and that's for a business which uses plenty of water. Surely it should be ten or twenty times that amount? If you compare what we pay for electricity and what we pay for water here, it's just nowhere near the same amount. There needs to be some serious investment in desalination plants in my mind, using the sea water.
 
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windeguy

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MariaRubia, the apartment owners are told they have to pay for the water companies cock-up.
Amazing. Simply amazing.
 
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johne

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MariaRubia said:
The situation in SD Este is terrible. In Riviera Colonial where some of my family live, there are 200 apartments which were heavily rented to AirBnB's. Caasd used to send water every day, but now it's once a week, if that. So there is water rationing, the water is turned on only between 7am and 9am, then from 6pm to 10pm. Which has completely emptied the Airbnb's as nobody wants to stay in an apartment where you can't have a shower when you want one. And now Caasd is saying the only solution is to dig a well, and the complex has to pay. And nobody wants to pay because all these AirBnB owners say they are losing money. Half of the apartments are up for sale now and the place is like the Marie Celeste. This stuff is serious.

To me part of the problem is what you pay for water in Santo Domingo. The most I have ever paid is about RD$ 500 a month and that's for a business which uses plenty of water. Surely it should be ten or twenty times that amount? If you compare what we pay for electricity and what we pay for water here, it's just nowhere near the same amount. There needs to be some serious investment in desalination plants in my mind, using the sea water.
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Maria---I need a bit of education here: I looked at the web site of Riviera Colonial that seems to promote an upscale style of living and meant to be hassle free. I get it. Now a drought comes along and whoops...Are any of these towers built to include a contingency so as to have their own source of water? Were the buyers fore warned that owners needed to rely on an outside service provider for their water? Is it clear what the ownership of such a unit might entail when faced with an assessment charge such as drilling a well?
Do these type of towers have a co-op or condo board to address such issues? Or do the developers own the majority of the units?
 
Lucas61

Lucas61

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Jun 13, 2014
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retired English teacher (30 years)
bob saunders said:
We have a huge cisterna at the school, takes about two days to fill, and 10 large tinacos (1500 gal each) on the roof . We keep two open at the rest in reserve for when the water from the street goes. We have three tinacos at home and without street water that will last us around two weeks. We have a very good well on our property just outside of town. When my wife was living in Santo Domingo in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she live in the area near UASD and she said there was always limited water.
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Wow! It sounds like you're golden. Of course, any supply is finite and must be replenished. I'm beginning to think that my problem is under the rubric of "normal changes" and that it was premature to say that the sky's falling (climate change) but it's something to keep in mind.
 
Lucas61

Lucas61

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chico bill said:
Water is the issue that will destroy development in DR.

It will only take a long drought to trigger it.
And all the leaks that go unfixed. I've seen more water wasted than used in Los Cerros. A water tank with fist size rust holes that when the tank is filled it blows out like a cartoon.

Yes prolonged severe water shortages would cause many foreigners to stop investing and property values to decline.

You could collect rain water of course - as long as it rains regularly.
But that brings bugs, leaves bird shit and dust into your home.
Pools are a good backup in emergency

And the water truck drivers pay Corraplata kick backs to keep certain areas from getting delivered.
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What is Corraplata?
 
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