On May 28th 2010, the water committee hosted a meeting for a representative of the Ministry of Health and private Spanish company. The company is contracted by the Panamanian government to assist in water development projects. The funds come in part from the government and in part from the World Bank. The funds are used for initial installations as well as improvements. Santa Clara has been chosen as an improvement project.
The original installation was done in the 1970’s. Recently the community replaced 3″ pipes leading from the current water tank down into the community with new 4″ pipes that is also thicker. Some of the older pipes were never buried and damage from cows, machetes, falling branches and the like were causing outages. The new pipes were buried, with the labor or funds provided by the community.
This project replaces the current 3″ pipe from the source to the tank with 4″ pipe. The pipe is also thicker (Schedule 40).
The community has to transport materials from the drop off point, where the road ends, to the work site.
The representative of the Department of Health Irving Yadriz said that the land access dispute must not prevent this work from continuing. He brought a contract for the two landowners to sign, which allowed permanent access to the project workers at least without having to ask permission.
Currently these landowners receive water from the main line before the tank. This is not allowable since they receive untreated water. They said they would reexamine the area to locate a new tank so that all users get treated water. They had made a math error in the budget so they will still come in way under the initial projection.
