Chile Forum

Water quality from the tap now atrocious.

Am putting my expensive camping/backpacking MSR water filter to good use.

Yeah, the drought/water situation in Chile is becoming very obvious.

At least I get some extra exercise pumping away just to get a liter's worth.

Priorities are priorities, do I lug a bottle of pisco or ron and 1.5 liters of vino up the hill or no booze and an equally large container of bottled water up the hill? Easy answer there.

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:. . . . some extra exercise pumping away just to get a liter's worth. . . .

Joking?

Maybe something is not working right though the water was fine. Took around 350 pumps to fill my wide mouth lexan bottle. Have the pre filter and the extra final charcoal module installed for flavor.

List to bring back this May (hmm, identical to an earthquake list) - long burning emergency candles, quality flashlights, replacement cartridges and charcoal for the filter, reading material when there is no computer or TV.

Speaking of earthquakes, I already got the MSR canister for my backpacking stove in Santiago and the fuel (bencina blanca) can be purchased at a ferreteria, Need to plan for water storage.

Could also use a good bencina blanca lantern.

For those not following the news within Chile:

Because of the drought affecting Chile, the water table is low, reservoirs have dried up and the water that comes out of my tap is now a little cloudy and rusty in color. No potable water emergency here - YET.

In some parts of central Chile, it is now declared unsafe to drink tap water and the government is trucking in drinking water.

So now we approach (another dry predicted) winter and are faced with the demands of (a) hydro-electric power generation and (b) potable human use.

Power rationing, price increases of electricity, gas and produce (becasue of drought damaged crops) are in our future.

So now I understand the pump. And see an unpotable future.

Seriously, there's no place on this earth without troubles. One merely -- "merely"! -- must sort through to find the least troublesome to himself.

We even had a shortage this summer in Padres de los casas just on the edge of Temuco. South of region VIII water is still overall in good supply, but it has been a dry year. We are still waiting on some serious rain clouds around Temuco, but we are now getting a weekly rain storm and temps have dropped.

Bought my firewood this morning for the year ( I hope ). 18,000 a meter, when last time this year it was 14,000 a meter. We did find one guy for a client that was selling at 14,000 a meter.

I should add however that we have not had any water quality problems. I still would drink the water in most any part of Chile over the toxic drugged radioactive sewage that comes out of the U.S. pipes.


Down in the Patagonia we did however see a lot of naked mountain tops, that normally are covered with glaciers.

One thing my pareja has mentioned is that ants are cognizant of the nature of the coming winter. The more cold and maybe wet the winter, the more tenacious and troublesome they are before the cold sets in.

I had a slight battle with the ants late in the summer last year and we then had a record cold winter in Central Chile.

This year has even been more of a battle with them. I wonder what the winter holds? I hope more wet rather than cold, over cold and dry or cold and wet.

Old wives tale?

The other problem with a cold winter is that it further reduces the output of power generating water flows. Let's hope ...

yea, endesa has got to be taking a very close second look at those rivers down south to make sure they are not going to go dry in a year like this one.

The strange thing is that just east of Temuco we had record snow falls last winter. I think it is the length of this years good weather that is messing things up. We typically had more rain in the summer here. Once a week rain, and once a month heavy storm in the summer. This year was more or less months of nothing. Not a drop or a cloud in the sky.

Here in Reñaca the water is still clear but we've seen the drought reflected in the price of potatoes at the Viña feria (the big one on 1 Norte - I love it). 6 weeks ago we paid 800 pesos for 5 kilos, then it was 1000 pesos for 5 kg, then for 4, for the past two weeks it's been 1000 pesos for 3 kilos. In other words the price of potatoes has more than doubled in less than two months.

hey, otravers where you been hiding? You should stop by once in an while and say hi.

Yea, think you will need to head to Chiloe to get papas at a good price. The IX region and such has been too dry to produce heavy potatoes this year. Typically they grow a lot west of Temuco towards the cost in the river bottoms.

love the potatoes in this country.. and happy to pay up to 2000 pesos a kilo (thats about what we pay in Australia.. having said that my in-laws planted potatoes on their property and are about to harvest about 50 or 60 sacos de papa..i think they weigh 50kg.. i think we'll have free potatoes this winter! .. going this weekend and i think we'll be harvesting them.. FUN..

on the water quality topic.. here in Concepcion the quality is still GREAT.. not blackouts or brown outs either.. none that i have noticed..