TICO BULL – As many of you know I recently moved to Piedades de Santa Ana, west of San José.
This Tuesday afternoon, April 28, I experienced my first rain storm of the season that is around the corner.
Alongside my property are two creeks, that run off from somewhere in town and suspect the Piedades mountain, to the Virilla river, that I believe connects to the Rio Grande, to the Tarcoles and the Pacific ocean.
The photos are of the creek, more correctly the open sewer, on the west side of the property. The photos were taken between 3:30pm and 3:55pm. I cannot describe the stench.
Unfortunately, this is typical of small creeks and many rivers around the Central Valley and perhaps the country. Most, if not all, of the older houses along the creek, for as long as I can follow it run their waster water directly into the creek. Some, maybe, have installed septic tanks. But from the what I saw today, I doubt there are many that do.
This article originally appeared on Ticobull.com
You can count on me to help out.
The real surprise of this story is that this comes as a surprise to anyone. Of course, even “grey water” isn’t supposed to run directly into waterways (structures aren’t even supposed to be that close to waterways), but it has long been known that the streams in the central valley are open sewers. The stream that runs through pricey San Rafael, Heredia received a lot of attention a couple of years ago.
To a lesser extent, this is true of every drainage ditch in the country due to the typical, unsanitary practice of trash disposal. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that putting paper containing fecal matter in trash bags, which are then torn open by animals and other scavengers will result in said fecal matter entering the roadside drainage system. I consider it a minor miracle that the country isn’t suffering an epidemic of fecal-borne diseases.
Fortunately for the author of the article, the rains are just beginning, and the rains should flush the system pretty thoroughly in no time. Unfortunately, that is no trickle of water, and it would take a major engineering project to do anything about it – probably a 20-year project in “Tico time.” Of course, every stream in the valley is just as bad.