Chile's Aguas Chañar tops list of water quality violations in January - SISS

Chilean water utility Aguas Chañar, serving in northern region III, topped the list of utilities with the highest number of water quality violations, according to information published by national sanitation services authority SISS. SISS' evaluation, which looks at over 16,500 different parameters for every water utility operating in the country, found that Aguas Chañar had breached these parameters on 14 separate occasions, the SISS report reads. Region X's water utility Essal followed with two turbidity parameter breaches, region VIII's Essbio had one parameter breach regarding residual chlorine, while region IX's Aguas Araucanía had one parameter breach regarding foul odor. In total, SISS recorded 27 parameter breaches, which in addition to the aforementioned cases, were for local utilities, operating mostly in rural communities. The authority noted that in the case of Aguas Chañar, the parameter breaches were mostly for the so-called organoleptic parameters, which have to do with aspects experienced by senses, including taste, color and smell. Aguas Chañar is in the process of expanding its reverse osmosis water treatment plant, scheduled to be operational by end-2014, which will help alleviate these problems. Additionally, the utility is also building two wastewater treatment plants in Caldera and Inca de Oro, scheduled to be operational by end-2014 and end-2013, respectively. These three investments, together with a desalination plant, scheduled to be operational in 2017, are part of Aguas Chañar's 2.33mn UFs (inflation-linked units, some US$110mn) 2012-22 investment plant, as BNamericas reported previously. Click here for the report, in Spanish.