Tiny Chile Village Wins Heavenly Water

A gift from the heavens has changed the lives of fishermen in this tiny village clinging precariously to the Chilean coast.

For 20 years after the closure of the iron mine which built the harbor, the village was without drinking water.

Each week, a tanker truck struggled down the treacherous dirt road between the hills with precious water which villagers bought for about 80 cents a quart.

Sometimes the truck was delayed. A small cross decorated with flowers near the entrance to the village stands in homage to a driver who died when his truck slid off the road.

Water was rationed. There was often not enough for bathing.

Since last spring, Chungungo now boasts a communal tank overflowing with water; trees and flowers have been planted in the dusty main street, and village leaders are planning a vegetable patch.

The change is thanks to a revolutionary plan to harvest water from the mist that rolls in from the sea each day.

“We always had people coming and promising things. But nothing ever happened. We didn’t believe them when they told us about this. We never thought that water was really going to come out,” said Sergio Espejo, president of the village association.

The technique is based on an age-old idea. One environmental official says there are signs that the Incas knew how to capture water from mist before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.

Some scientists believe Bible references to manna from heaven may refer to a desert trick of hanging cloth out at night to catch moisture and squeezing it out in the morning, he said.

The plan, called the Camanchaca Project after an indigenous name for the mist, is the fruit of around 30 years of study by scientists in the desert north of Chile.

Research, combined with practical trial and error, showed the technology was cheap, easy to build and maintain, and needed no special equipment. In 1991, with funds from Canada and local government, work began on building the water catchers.

Vast curtains of plastic mesh, the kind used by farmers to shade crops, are fixed between wooden poles set in the hills from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level.

The curtains catch the water droplets in the mist as winds drive it inland. The water runs down the curtain into a plastic tube cut open at the top and then through pipes to the village.

Original estimates of how much water the curtains could catch have been shown to be far too low and the village is enjoying what was once only a wild dream, a water surplus.

Claudio Masson of the National Forestry Corp., or Conaf, which is in charge of the project, said that when the tank filled up, villagers went wild, dousing each other in water fights.

The mist is not a resource that can be depleted. Scientists believe it has been forming and rolling inland for millions of years. “It’s not a phenomenon that will disappear,” Masson said.

It has revived the fishing village that once looked like it was doomed. The water is metered and villagers charged at half the rate they used to pay the tanker truck.

The money goes into a fund which employs a villager to maintain the system. “People are even arriving (to live) in the village again,” Daisy Sasmaya said as she cleaned shellfish at the dockside.

Masson and other Conaf officials believe the success of Chungungo could be repeated elsewhere.

The sea mists are a common phenomenon at these latitudes. Where hills rise up close to the coast, the water can be caught.

“Desertification is increasing around the world. . . . The problem is finding water,” Masson said. “This isn’t a solution for large-scale problems. But it will solve the problems of small communities.”

Conaf is planning an international conference here in 1993 when its involvement in the Chungungo project officially ends. Before then, Masson is working on supplying another fishing village with water from the hills.