Chile utility Essal announces wastewater investments

Chilean water utility Essal unveiled a 10bn-peso (US$16mn) plan to reinforce its wastewater treatment and disposal systems, after it was found to have carried out wastewater discharges into two lakes of the country's southern Los Ríos (XIV) and Los Lagos (X) regions.

The plan, which is being reviewed by water regulator SISS, entails two stages, with the first one being already in execution and 50% complete, CEO Hernán König said in a press release.

This first phase consists of reinforcing and improving the existing sanitation infrastructure and impulsion plants, and ending "non-authorized connections" to rainwater collectors and the sewerage system.

The second stage entails security works in order to transport the cities' wastewater into the treatment plants, guaranteeing that the discharges don't end up in the lakes.

Essal was recently hit with a lawsuit from the Puerto Varas municipality in Los Lagos due to the company's discharge of wastewater of the Llanquihue Lake. The firm was also found to have carried out 95 discharges of wastewater into Panguipulli lake, near the municipality of Los Ríos, in the last four years, and was fined for it.

The company argued that illegal rainwater connections collapsed its system during storms, according to the newspaper.

Panguipulli mayor Rodrigo Valdivia voiced his disapproval of the actions taken by Essal. "12 years ago they should have presented an environmental impact study on the wastewater discharges in the lake and they never did", he told daily El Mercurio, and added that he will file a suit against the company in the environmental court of Valdivia.