mishqui-yacu, sweet water - IFAD

36
It was an ambitious project. However, it was too much of a blueprint
solution. The project was based on concrete. All thinking
was concerned with cement. They planned building the dam and
the canals, forgetting the fact that irrigation is not only a question
of providing more water. It is essentially a question of providing
good management. You have to organize the use of the water
upstream and all the way down. An issue involving human relations.
The water associations did already exist, but they were not
involved in the planning process. Therefore, the conflict did not
come as a surprise. 40
Four different irrigation systems were planned. However, it was the
plans for Culebrillas that raised fierce opposition, probably because
14 existing canals were going to be affected. A new canal meant that
all 14 canals were going to be reorganized. Current canal users felt
excluded from the entire planning process. They feared that traditional
access to older irrigation systems was severely threatened,
and were convinced they would lose water through project innovations.
The situation was worsened by plans to distribute water from
Culebrillas to the area of Suscal. Even though the proposed dam in
Culebrillas had more than enough capacity to feed both irrigation
systems, users of the existing canals calculated that the new systems
would make everything worse. Since the new systems would be much
bigger than the older ones, the original users of the Culebrilla water
assumed that meant less water for everyone. Didn't the introduction
of a new canal to Suscal run the risk that El Tambo would lose much
of its water?
The project CARC had decided to make the dam. Nothing else; it
was news to us. Suddenly the fact was there. A certain engineer
Carran explained that the water was going to Suscal. All water
was going to be assembled in one canal, the Canal Coronel. We
thought that meant no water to El Tambo. There was talk of rebellion,
of suing CARC and all agencies involved. 41
40
41
42
43
44
Interview with Rudolf Mulder, Dutch Co-Director to CARC.
Interview with Julián Guaman, president of the water committee of the Canal Cachi-
Banco Romerino Pillocapata.
León (1993), pp. 1-3.
Interview with Daniel Rodríguez, former mayor of El Tambo.
Interview with Abelina Morocho Pinguil. She presently serves as mayor in Suscal, but
was born in El Tambo, where she still works on her father’s land. She married in Suscal,
where she also has land. She is evidently familiar with irrigation problems in both areas.