For a term of 12 months, an upscale resort in the dry province of Guanacaste will provide some neighboring communities with desperately needed water. The resort in question is the Reserva Conchal, which has ceded rights to a local utility so that water can be extracted from the Nimboyores aquifer located beneath the surface of this private property.

An agreement between Reserva Conchal and the state-run Institute of Water and Aqueducts (Spanish initials A y A) will allow the utility to assume full control of the portion of the property where the aquifer sits, A y A will extract water at the rate of 70 liters per seconds, even though the source has been previously rated to yield up to 188 liters per second; with extended drought conditions and the meteorological reality of climate change, water engineers in Guanacaste do not want to risk drying up water sources before the rainy season arrives.

The water extracted collected from Reserva Conchal’s aquifer will be transported via cistern trucks to remoted communities where drought conditions are at severe levels.

According to a report filed by Irela Fornaguera of national newspaper La Nacion, Reserva Conchal does not have to be compensated at all for the use of this aquifer. It so happens that when the property was acquired years ago, the buyers agreed to the use of the aquifer in exchange for a greater fluvial concession; however, such grant was opposed to by neighboring communities and by water conservation groups in Costa Rica, and thus the property owner must now live up to their end of the deal even if they cannot enjoy greater access to water themselves.

As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star:

The province of Guanacaste may be home to the Gold Coast beaches, the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport, the most expensive communities in Costa Rica, and a thriving expatriate scene, but it comes up way short in one aspect: a reasonable and efficient supply of drinking water. One of the most vexing challenges of the current administration under President Luis Guillermo Solis is to ensure that all communities in the formerly “forgotten province” of Guanacaste have access to water, and his cabinet is more than ready to take on this task. The only thing missing is funding.

Although Guanacaste is already known as being the driest region of Costa Rica, the last two droughts have taken a toll on the agricultural industry as well as on low-income rural communities.