Wellington Arnaud says drought conditions are exceptionally difficult

Wellington Arnaud described the Dominican Republic’s water situation as particularly difficult and asked residents to use the resource sparingly. The director of the National Institute of Potable Water and Sewerage, Inapa, linked the conditions to El Niño and regional climate patterns.

Arnaud pointed to Puerto Rico, recently declared under extreme drought, as an indication of the pressure facing the region. “It is a message to the population to ration water, to take care of water because we are in very difficult times,” he said during the weekly LA Agenda Semanal program at the National Palace.

He said the Pacific Ocean’s warming was contributing to conditions that require closer attention to water availability. Arnaud also said the government had invested more than 37 billion pesos in drinking-water and sanitation during the current administration. Those projects installed more than 3,000 kilometers of pipelines, increased water production by more than 3.5 cubic meters per second, and reached more than 2.5 million people with drinking-water services and about 1.5 million through wastewater-treatment projects.

Arnaud said sanitation would account for a larger share of investment next year. He cited the Villa Altagracia aqueduct in San Cristóbal, which now draws from the Haina River and has a capacity of 300 liters per second. He also mentioned the expansion of the Haina aqueduct with 120 kilometers of pipes, drainage and sanitation work in San Cristóbal, a wastewater-treatment plant in Lavapié, and an expansion of the Baní aqueduct in Peravia.

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It is a message to the population to ration water, to take care of water because we are in very difficult times.