Costa Rica Opinion – I had the joy of spending Christmas in bed hoping that I would be able to re-hydrate after water was coming out of both ends of my body. There is nothing worse than the weak feeling you get after having all the water leave your body.
The only other time I felt this way was when I had drank well water in Mexico. Exact same symptoms from a parasite that had found a new home in my stomach.
In Mexico I tried to push through it for 2 days before heading to a friends who drive me to the hospital. After an IV was attached to my arm I began to feel better. It took a round of antibiotics to get the parasite out of me and for me to return to normal.
In Mexico due to the lack of water treatment and the old pipes not many drink water from the tap. There is a huge risk for parasites and bacteria.
After I went to the pharmacy to get treatment the day after Christmas, I learned that 5 other people I knew in the area also had the same sort of parasite problem.
So the question is are these just random instances or is there a bigger problem at hand?
96% of all urban wastewater collected is discharged into rivers and receiving bodies without any treatment, generating public health risks and water resources contamination.
For those that live in San Jose there is less risk as most of the water comes from the mountains and then goes to the faucet, but for those lying outside the and specifically on the two coasts, that wastewater is seeping into the aqueducts and reservoirs.
The pipeline that holds this wastewater is old and corroding. The rivers are becoming more and more polluted. That contamination and pollution is getting into the water being used by the public.
A recent study showed that over 1,000,000 homes in Costa Rica had fecal matter in their tap water.
I do not know about you, but I do not like drinking poop water.
Will the Costa Rican government be proactive and try to fix this before it becomes a bigger problem, probably not. My assumption is it will require a large scale problem before anything is done.
Let’s hope it does not get as bad as Mexico, as it will drive away tourists. But you can always invest in bottled water companies in Costa Rica.
I am going to continuing writing about this issue until the CR government does something about it……..
