El Salvador's government sends general water law into legislative pipeline

Re-posted with permission from the publishers as a PDF document as part of an Institutional Repository collection to aggregate energy policy, regulation, dialogue and educational materials.For the million or so residents of greater San Salvador whose faucets run dry on a regular basis, the message they received in late April from the Administración de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (ANDA) was a familiar one: "It’s going to be a while." Because of technical problems, the pumping station that supplies those homes is only operating at about half capacity right now, according to ANDA, El Salvador’s state water regulator. Las Parvas, as the plant is called, draws water from the Río Lempa, El Salvador’s largest river, and supplies between 45% and 60% of greater San Salvador’s drinking water. On World Water Day, March 22, Environment Minister Herman Rosa Chávez presented the Asamblea with a 178‐ point Ley General de Agua, a comprehensive bill that looks to "guarantee the right to water" by establishing a usage blueprint for all of El Salvador’s water resources. "No other country in Latin America has as critical a situation as the one El Salvador faces," Rosa Chávez said during the official presentation. One of the bill's principal features is that it prioritizes human consumption over other uses of water—such as irrigation or electricity generation, for example—which have preference, in turn, over industrial and commercial interests. In this way the legislation offers authorities clear guidelines for resolving water conflicts