Letters to Quito: When the job cannot teach you what to do, bring in someone who knows

For Ecuador, drainage and stormwater management are not technical details. They are a matter of survival, the article argues, in a country hit by intense rains every year and facing the threat of El Niño.

More than five million Ecuadorians live in rural areas without many basic services, even in the 21st century. Yet the country is still trying to confront storms and runoff without adequate infrastructure, planning or preparation. The article calls the gap between the danger and the response unacceptable.

It warns that years of neglect in hydraulic works could cost lives, destroy crops and damage local economies. The remedy, it says, is overdue but unavoidable: Ecuador must design, build and maintain drainage systems, flood controls and water-regulation infrastructure to protect both communities and productive sectors.

The criticism extends to the abandonment of streams and flood-prone rivers, which the article describes as natural systems as essential as engineered defenses. Their neglect, it argues, is not merely a technical oversight but an ethical and civil failure that history should judge.

The article says the Water Secretariat lost sight of its mission, becoming an office focused on procedures and reports while concentrating on water-quality monitoring in mining areas. Meanwhile, rivers, streams and vulnerable watersheds elsewhere in the country were left to chance. It also condemns the decision to eliminate the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, leaving producers without a technical voice or lead institution. The head of the “super-ministry” that absorbed those responsibilities must now explain what has been done, what has not been done and how the country intends to limit the damage already approaching.