‘A case without a solution’

Guatemala’s water crisis rages despite help from community members, water filtration services and new developments.

A local truck used to deliver water sits in San Pedro Las Huertas Jan. 12. The car goes around the city exchanging empty jugs of water for full jugs so entrepreneurs like Oscar Sol can clean the empty jugs and use them again for new batches of purified water. | Photo by Clark Frederickson

By Makenzi Johnson

Water dripped from the silver faucet, falling into the large metal sink at a steady beat.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

The water is clear, but it’s deceitful.

Jonatan Suárez, owner of a small shop in San Cristobal El Bajo, does not let himself or his family drink or use that water. Instead, they must wait.

Their source of clean water comes from the government of Antigua, but it doesn’t flow all the time. The faucets only stream the clean water at certain, unpredictable times of the day and when the faucets allow water to flow, families rush to fill up jugs, bottles, bowls or anything they can find to store water.

Store owner Jonatan Suárez takes care of his shop in San Cristobal El Bajo Jan. 10, minutes before he closes the store to have breakfast with his family. He was attending to some customers when his son told him breakfast was ready. “I look for clean water because of my kids. They’re young and I can’t give them dirty water,” Suárez said. He is one of many neighbors concerned with the water problems in San Cristobal El Bajo and is frustrated that all his initiatives have been shut down by the municipalities of Antigua. | Photo by Clark Frederickson

“Sometimes … we have to stay up until midnight to find recipients to store water,” Suárez said. “Sometimes laundry has to be done at night because there is no water during the day.”

The Suárez family is not alone in that sense, as many families living in impoverished conditions only have access to water at certain times of the day. Water can be found almost everywhere: alongside roads, in the large wells in town squares, out of a household faucet and more, but only 61% of that water is safe enough to use, according to Globalwaters, a project of USAID. A study done by the Environmental Ministry and Habitat for Humanity affirmed that 95% of all surface water sources in the country are contaminated. Even nonprofit efforts of water donation and purification are not enough to support the 10% of people in Guatemala who do not have access to water at all.

A woman stepped into Suárez’s shop with a bag of corn and paid three quetzales ($0.39) to use the grinder in Suárez’s shop to make dough for tortillas. She rinsed her hands with the tap water and hastily dried them off on her pink buffalo-check sweatshirt, the water soaked into the worn fabric. Suárez closed the gate to the shop after the woman stepped out.

Kevin, an 11-year-old boy, ran up the road, eyes trained on the closed shop door. His small hands gripped the iron bars of the gate as he talked to Suárez and paid for a bag of rice. Kevin quickly shoved change into his pockets and ran back down the dirt road, then hopped down a steep path leading to his house on the hill. There, his mother, Natividad, waited for him. Their house is small, with one full-size bed for his mom and dad and a set of bunk beds that Kevin shares with his two younger brothers, Bryan, nine, and Oscar, five. Along one wall is a divider separating the shower and the toilet, colorful hanging sheets acting as doors. The rust-colored pila, a large sink with three compartments, is filled with dirty dishes – but no water.

Julia Griselda laughs with a neighbor while explaining how they get water from her pila. When asked if she knew about Ecofiltro, Griselda said, “They haven’t come around here to give them away.” In her pila sits a dirty Ecofiltro bucket, which Griselda uses for holding dirty laundry. | Photo by Javier Anleu

The middle compartment of the pila is meant for storing water, the faucet hanging over this section. Natividad fills up the middle compartment, plus old plastic soda bottles to use throughout their day. If they did not have receptacles to store water, Natividad would have to walk 10 minutes down to the communal well, then 10 water-heavy minutes back up, a physically draining and repetitive commute.

“I don’t go down [to the well],” Natividad said. “The water we store is enough for us.”

One house below Natividad and her children live María García Bautista, Ervín Lopez and their 12-year-old daughter Fátima. Their water situation is almost the same as Natividad’s: fill up the pila and jugs with as much water as they can when the water is on. Dirty dishes and laundry accumulate in the sink throughout the day. Bautista waits until the end of the day to use whatever water the family has left to clean, but the pila usually runs out of water halfway through the day. Bautista’s family cannot afford to buy jugs of purified water, so they have no choice but to drink straight from the faucet when they can. Lopez worries about his family and others in San Cristobal – the population is growing and the water source is becoming more scarce each day.

The mayor of San Cristobal El Bajo wants to take the existing water from the well and relocate it to wealthier families. With the population growth, there’s supposedly nothing he can do about the well. Men and women, Lopez and Suárez included, have tried to negotiate with the mayor about the well, but Suárez said that consequences arise if someone tries to speak up.

In the rainy season, May to October, the well water only gets worse. Due to increased rainfall, Lopez said dirt and trash get mixed into the mouth of the river, which then is pumped into the well. People who walk to the well expecting to find drinkable water see brown, cloudy water with pieces of grass, trash and debris in it.

“We only reconsider buying [jugs of water] then,” Lopez said.

About two miles southwest of San Cristobal El Bajo lies the village of San Pedro Las Huertas.

Oscar Hernández takes one last walk around San Pedro as Deputy Mayor. Later that night, a new mayor will be sworn in and Hernández’s 2021 mayoral term will come to an end. Hernández said he worked to improve this village’s water problem.

“A second well is practically 75% done,” Hernández said.

Deputy Mayor Oscar Hernández, on his last day in office, explains how the municipal water system works through the well while walking through San Pedro Las Huertas. “The city has grown so much that a second well was needed,” Hernández said. “It’s a pity I wasn’t able to finish the second well before my term finished, but I have the satisfaction that it is practically done so the new Deputy Mayor will help to improve the water problem even more.” | Photo by Clark Frederickson

Prior to the second well being built, a single community well served the 8,500 people of San Pedro for several years. But one well can’t provide for everyone.

“The houses in the higher grounds are the ones that have more water problems because it’s harder for the water to reach them,” Hernández said.

Houses closest to the well at the base of San Pedro get water first while houses further up the hill have to wait. Gravity works against those living in the higher grounds as they are the last to receive the naturally downhill-flowing water.

For the past six years, people in San Pedro have tried to get a second well built, but the local government of Antigua has been hesitant to comply. Hernández said one of his main goals and roles as the mayor was to convince the mayor of Antigua that San Pedro was worthy of a second well.

“Unfortunately, we depend on Antigua’s municipality,” Hernández said. “It’s not like [the people of San Pedro] can go and make the well. We need permission.”

With Hernández prodding the mayor of Antigua, the construction of a second well finally began in 2021.

In the higher grounds of San Pedro, Oscar García Sol stands in front of a large black tank filled with water. He reaches over to turn on a water purifier, the dull sound of a motor spreading throughout the small room.

The process begins with water from the community well and with Sol’s water purifier somehow using ozone as a cleaner, the first round of purification is done. The water then passes through several small filters, collecting dirt and chlorine. The water is run multiple times through these filters. If for some reason the filters don’t catch something, a strong ultraviolet light zaps the leftover bacteria. The water purification is complete, but Sol must prepare the jugs.

Careful not to touch the mouth of the five-gallon jug, Sol places it upside down over a spigot. The jug is disinfected, filled with the newly cleaned water and capped. Sol holds a layer of plastic film and melts it over the cap, the seal of cleanliness. Depending on the size of an order, Sol will either load up to three jugs on the back of his motorcycle or load them in the bed of his pickup. The work of Agua Purificacion Sol is done for the day.

“In the seven years of us being a business, no one has ever said, ‘Oscar, your water doesn’t taste good’ or ‘Oscar, your water is dirty,’” Sol said.

Oscar Sol isn’t the only one in the water purification business. Entrepreneur Philip Wilson started a company called Ecofiltro in 2000 in hopes of solving Guatemala’s water crisis. He realized a majority of rural families with water problems were receiving donations of water treated with chlorine from nonprofits, missionaries or non-governmental organizations.

Entrepreneur and water purifier Oscar Sol goes through the final process of cleaning a jug while the water runs through the pipes. “I’m very quick at doing the whole process, but I want to teach some kids from school how to do it so they can work with me,” Sol said. Because of the pandemic, his son, Oscar Jr., had to quit because he found a better job. Now, Oscar is looking for young people who want to make some money in these hard times. | Photo by Davis McElmurry

“Chlorine is really cheap and it’s really effective, but it has zero cultural acceptance,” Wilson said. “Do you like drinking pool water? Neither do the poor.”

Ecofiltro, originally designed by Guatemalan native Fernando Mazariegos, uses layers of clay, colloidal silver and sawdust to filter water from virtually any source, including wells, rivers, faucets and more with the exception of salt water. An Ecofiltro can also eliminate any chlorine from water.

“[Ecofiltro users] have doubled their intake of water because when you put water in clay, it drops the temperature and gives it a very natural taste,” Wilson said.

Ecofiltro originally had a goal of helping one billion rural Guatemala families by 2020, but recently pushed its timeline to 2025 due to the pandemic.

“If you walk into any village, almost every family will have an Ecofiltro,” Wilson said.

For families in San Cristobal El Bajo and San Pedro Las Huertas, that is not the case.

Suárez knows about Ecofiltro, has heard about the benefits and knows some families receive one for free, but cannot receive one for free himself since he owns a store. One of the main issues holding Suárez back from purchasing the product is how effective it would be realistically when his family already struggles with getting water in the first place.

“If there’s no water, what are we going to put inside the Ecofiltro?” Suárez said.

In Bautista and Lopez’s house, an Ecofiltro is considered a luxury. Bautista’s sister has one and everyone in the family can agree that the water from an Ecofiltro is better because it is colder — but Bautista and Lopez cannot afford one. Bautista stays at home during the day and Lopez gets unsteady work as a construction worker. The financial insecurity means they would have to save money for an Ecofiltro when they could be using that money to buy food or other necessities instead.

Marlon, an Ecofiltro factory employee, gives the proper Ecofiltro form to the clay. “For us, the company gave us the opportunity to buy two Ecofiltros at a lower price per year so we can enjoy the benefits of our product,” said Marlon when asked if he had benefits from working at the factory. Marlon has been working for Ecofiltro for roughly a year and now is able to get all the clay filters shown in the picture ready for the next step in production in one day. | Photo by Javier Anleu

Julia Griselda, a mother of three young children, has never heard of Ecofiltro, even while an Ecofiltro sits in her red pila.

Griselda doesn’t use the Ecofiltro for the purpose of water filtration. She doesn’t know how. She doesn’t even know what it is. To her, it’s just an ordinary white bucket that sits collecting dirt and dust.

Oscar Sol recognizes that Ecofiltro is a positive thing, but it’s bad for his business. Customers of Ecofiltro pay a minimum of 218.90 quetzales ($28) for the smallest, most basic version. Wilson purposely priced most of the Ecofiltros below 400 quetzales because “it will pay for itself in three months or less” and “[someone] is going to have free water for two years.” With a two-year warranty on the Ecofiltros, Wilson argues that they are more economically feasible than other filters or methods of getting water.

Sol’s customers pay 30 quetzales a week for one jug. Unlike an Ecofiltro, his product will not “pay for itself” in months or years. Some of his customers have already left him for Ecofiltro.

“With the pandemic and Ecofiltro, we are talking about a 40% decrease in our business,” Sol said. “Right now I am trying to rescue the business.”

The rise of Ecofiltro means the fall of Sol’s business. Chlorinated water, while purified, means fewer people drinking water. The governments of Antigua controlling the small villages means hundreds of families do not have access to pure water. Suárez said that the water crisis in Guatemala keeps worsening, especially with population growth.

“It is a case without a solution,” Suárez said.

(Additional reporting by Javier Anleu, Davis McElmurry and Clark Frederickson.)