Who owns the water in Guatemala?

All Guatemalans, of course, just like the air.

Water belongs to the Guatemalan people and it’s managed by the government; national and local government. In theory, Guatemalans don’t pay for the water itself, but for the distribution system; that is the electricity to pump it and the distribution pipes. The water bill can vary a lot from zone to zone for the same amount of distributed water.

Water is always available in the wealthy neighborhood homes. Water is rarely available in the poor neighborhood homes. Water is not even available in many villages homes. This reality is what brings us to today’s picture. There are several public water faucets located in San Pedro Las Huertas, one the villages that belong to Municipio of La Antigua Guatemala, county in Spanish, pues. That people actually use the public tap water faucets makes me believe that water is not available in all the houses in this aldea, village.

Central America and Guatemala especially have an abundance of water resources, many are groundwater. La Antigua Guatemala is located in a valley irrigated with over six months of a rainy season per year. La Antigua Guatemala is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes that collect even more water. Much of this collected rain ends up as groundwater and then pump to municipal water tanks and finally available through the public water distribution system, of which the public water faucets are part of, and then, in some cases, water is hauled home like the image above shows.

I believe I could do an entire series just on water; any of you interested in learning about water rights, water usages, water wells, municipal water, public water distributions, public washbasin water tanks, water stations and bottled water? If we get 15 requests I will take all the photos and research all the information this week; it is up to you.

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