SOCIALIST Venezuela's Politicians and Rich Drilled Wells As the Rest of the Country Went Thirsty

Venezuela once made a fortune pumping oil, but this latest drilling boom in search of water signals the country's bust.


Families in wealthy enclaves of Caracas are banding to together to dig private wells - often illegally - spending a small fortune so they can flush and wash without thinking twice.


It's a solution far out of reach in impoverished hillside areas, where residents have taken their overflowing frustration to the streets in protest.


Venezuela was once awash in money from vast oil reserves, but critics blame nearly two decades of socialist rule for plunging it into bankruptcy.


Venezuela's meltdown is picking up pace under President Nicolas Maduro's rule, driving masses into exile fed up with shortages of food and medicine, street violence, rampant blackouts, and now sputtering faucets.


Jose Maria de Viana, former president of Caracas' state-run water provider Hidrocapital and now university professor, blames incompetence.


An aviation specialist today holds his old job, de Viana said, rather than a trained engineer like him.


By the late 1990s, engineers had honed the system to be world-class, pumping water from far-off reservoirs over towering mountains into the valley that cradles Caracas.


Two decades later, the pipes are bursting, pumps failing and a small herd of cattle outside the city graze at the bottom of the Mariposa reservoir on grass that should be deep underwater.


De Viana dismissed government claims that the rainy season has been slow to kick off and replenish drained reservoirs. The system was designed to see the city through dry spells, he said.


Fed up with water shortages, one group of residents in Caracas' Campo Alegre neighbourhood in February hired a drilling firm at $7,000 - less than half of what they'd pay today with such high demand.


Divided up, each family paid roughly $280. At least three buildings on the street have hired the same engineer.


The firm moves its crew and towering yellow rig from one worksite to the next. The noisy diesel-powered outfit shutters around the clock for several days until the drill strikes water.


Drillers say they easily bore through Caracas' spongy soil to the water table starting at 260 feet (80 meters) down. It's normally fine to drink after some testing, they say.


The less fortunate who struggle with dwindling public water capture sporadic flows in 150-gallon (560-liter) plastic storage tanks fitted with buzzing electric pumps. Or they stand in line at trickling hillside springs to fill up empty jugs for free.



Officials at Hidrocapital and Venezuela's Ecosocialism and Water Ministry did not respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press.


Hashi Josepía of Cubagua, a water well drilling company, said calls had spiked in the last two months from people desperate for water with the phone ringing four or five times a day, compared to one or two calls each week a year ago.


He said the company's single drilling rig doesn't get a rest.


Most of these private wells are going in illegally. The law requires a permit before drilling starts, but the paperwork can take up to two years, time residents refuse to wait.


When officials stick their nose in, a building's residents ask the best-connected among them to pull strings.


Drilling is no option, however, for the vast majority of Venezuelans who've seen wages pulverized by a collapsing currency and five-digit inflation. The commonly earned minimum wage amounts to less than $2 a month.