Will we soon have to drink salt water due to the lack of fresh water? In any case, this is the situation Uruguayans have been facing since April. The country has been affected by drought for the past three years, which has severely depleted groundwater reserves. The springs that supply 60% of Uruguay’s 3.4 million people are less than 2% full, the lowest level in the country’s history. So the authorities decided to mix the remaining drinking water with water from the estuary, the Rio de la Plata, which is salty because it is so close to the Atlantic Ocean.
l’State Sanitation Work (OSE), a public company in charge of water, has raised regulations for sodium and chloride levels in drinking water. They ranged from 200 to 440 mg/l and 250 to 720 mg/l, respectively. A situation that worries the population, despite the speech of the Minister of Health, who confirmed last May that tap water, despite its pronounced salty taste, was not dangerous to health. Still, pregnant women and people with high blood pressure or kidney disease are told to drink only bottled water…