With the objective of consolidating public policies linked to the rational use of water and the care of resources, within the framework of the parameters established by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and following the recommendations of the IDB, the Decentralized Sanitary Works Agency will proceed with the installation of 5,400 water meters in different neighborhoods of the city.
The initiative is part of the Institutional Strengthening Program that the Municipality of Concordia is promoting based on an agreement signed with ENOHSA, within the framework of the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) PAyS II Program. The objective is to have reading systems that accompany the doubling in the increase of drinking water production that will be generated from the commissioning of the new Water Treatment Plant.
Along with the micro-meters, 4 macro-meters and 8 mobile measurement units also arrived in Concordia.
The meters are placed at the water inlet of the home and allow for the tracking of the number of liters used in order to detect excess consumption, leaks, or waste, and thus regulate consumption, establish a fair price, and save money.
Starting with the installation of the micro-meters, it will be possible to carry out a regulation for the responsible consumption of the water service, which currently averages a high level of production in relation to most of the providers in the country and the region, with more than 480 liters per person per day.
A MODEL OF A PLANNED AND SUSTAINABLE CITY
“The installation of micro-meters marks an advance in the distribution system and in the household connections of the city. What is currently produced in the water treatment plant, the Roca complex, and the wells in operation far exceeds the average annual liter per person measure that the WHO marks as optimal, so having greater control over the amount of water being used will allow for better regulation of the service,” indicated mayor Enrique Cresto in this regard.
Adding that “in this first stage, it will serve to know exactly what amount of water is consumed, which allows for the detection of leaks, having a fairer distribution system, and guaranteeing a restriction on waste, especially ahead of the next summer. It is necessary that we be in solidarity because those who spend too much prevent the service from reaching other parts of the city, something we suffered in previous years,” he expressed.
Adding later that “the installation of meters has a double importance because, on one hand, it benefits consumers who use water responsibly and will pay what is fair for their consumption; and on the other, it represents an ecological benefit since it will allow us to recognize leaks, losses, or waste in a scarce and vital good,” he highlighted.
For her part, Vanesa Leonardelli described that “this is a project that we began to develop in 2020, which we presented to ENOHSA for the search for financing from the IDB through a program called Institutional Strengthening, which tends precisely to accompany those companies that have prior financing from the IDB, in our case, that of the water treatment plant. The important thing to highlight is that the city will reach 50% metering. This is already part of a Master Plan carried out by our mayor since his first term, which has the objectives of modernizing and optimizing all our sanitation resources,” she detailed.
Leonardelli also indicated that “as a public company, we bear witness that the joint work with ENOHSA and the push that Enrique gave to the works in Concordia in recent years marked a turning point in terms of growth and development as a company because we were able to access a number of financing programs, whether for distribution, networks, modernization of our current plant, the construction of the new plant, and in this case, accompanying micro-metering, which has to do not only with consumption control but with a way to incentivize responsible consumption of this service,” she concluded.