Introduction Pungalá-Alao

By Gijs Bauer (Master students exchange programme, cohort of 2024-2025)

¡Holas a todos!

Gijs here, with a new blog about my experiences here in el Ecuador. Recently, Rutgerd and Bibiana came to visit us in Riobamba, how exciting! What I would like to write about today is our visit to my research area: Pungalá-Alao. After a few long and interesting days in the field, visiting Quito, Guarguallá, and Cecelles, it was time to take a closer look at the hydrosocial dynamics in Pungala-Alao. Let me first shortly give you some background information. There are two major distinctive regions here: On the one hand, Pungalá is the downstream village that acts as an ‘urban’ area, since it houses the Parish government and several shops. During asambleas, peasant farmers from all over Alao, the second, larger upstream region, travel here for hours on end to let their voices be heard. I myself already had the chance to attend one of those meetings, and I can tell you that it is very inspiring to see the leaders expressing their concerns, listening to others, and eventually negotiating with each other.

Implications TMA

Like the other days, Rutgerd and Bibiana hired a long-distance taxi to drive us to Alao. The plan was to first visit the intake of a hydroelectric power plant; la hidroelectrica Alao. This plant is a crucial element in my research, as it is highly connected to the Transvase Maguazo Alao (TMA), the drinking water project that transports water from the highlands to Riobamba (see my last blog). As we drove to this location, I was reminded about the implications of the TMA by the continuous stretch of pipeline that lies beneath the road from Pungalá to Alao. The municipality promised the communities to improve this road as compensation for the TMA, but that promise yet has to be fulfilled. We could also see damaged pipes, rusty and exposed to the elements, due to landslides that had occurred. It is still a question whether this piece of technology will withstand the necessary forces throughout time.

Hidroelectrica

When we arrived at the hydroelectricity plant, we took some time to simply observe the infrastructure and its surroundings. There are interesting hydropolitical dimensions to this build that were introduced by the TMA project. The TMA’s intake is located upstream of the hydroelectric plant in the Maguazo river and, although the plant also receives water from the Alao river, it is likely that the TMA is going to affect the production capacity of the hidroelectrica Alao. How profound this effect is going to be is yet to be discovered, as the TMA project had not yet commenced when we visited it. What is interesting here is that both projects are managed and owned by the mayor John Vinueza and the municipality of Riobamba. The hidroelectrica Alao is part of the Empresa Hidroelectrica de Riobamba which is managed by the municipality, and the TMA project is a direct initiative of the municipal government, dating back to the early 2000s. It leaves one to wonder why it is exactly this location that the intake of the TMA was constructed. Were there no side streams (the Maguazo ends in the Alao) higher up in the Alao catchment? Did the municipality of the former mayor, Napoleon Cadena, account for this overlap in intakes? The visit to the hidroelectrica left me with these questions and prompted me to speak to the engineer that was working that day. Luckily, he was open to conduct an interview at a later moment in time!

Intake

It was then time to visit the actual intake of the TMA. I had already visited it with Sebastián some weeks before; back then the actual intake gate was closed, so no water was entering the system. This time, however, the gate was open, and the water was freely flowing into the pipes of the drinking water project. Where was this water going? Well, we did not have any idea at the time, since the project was projected to commence the 24st of December, as a true Christmas present. This visit, Rutgerd explained to us the technological considerations the engineers of the project had to deal with: the type of overflow structure, the soiltype on which the intake was built, and more.

Mining

The intake is constructed in a region that belongs to the community of Peltetec. Interestingly, this community is famous for resisting mining efforts by sheer community organizing.  Peltetec is namely almost entirely concessioned by the Ecuadorian government to foreign mining companies (Sebastián traced it back to Canada). A few days after our visit to Alao, a small illegal mining operation was shut down by the military. It seems that Peltetec houses plenty of valuable minerals that outside forces wish to extract. Besides the devastating impact on the environment and communities of Peltetec, ongoing mining operations would also be devastating for the TMA project and all its beneficiaries. Mining pollutes the ground-and surface water sources heavily, introducing extremely toxic compounds such as mercury and cyanide. I don’t think I have to explain how this will impact the functionality of drinking water system which captures water in the same catchment as the mining companies operate in…

Wedding

Let me end this blog on a happy note though: on our way back down to Riobamba we passed an indigenous wedding. Rutgerd decided that we should take a look, and before we knew it, we were invited to dance with the crowd. We were dancing on a particular type of indigenous music. I later sent a video to Jorge Sanchez, a local activist and musical artist who informed me the following:

Son las tonadas, muy extendidas en el centro del país y apreciadas para el baile, sobre todo se oyen en las fiestas de esta época de navidad, rítmica ternaria!

Another unexpected surprise at this wedding was the fact that Pedro, the key actor in my research, was present! I had not spoken to him before, nor did he at that time know who I was. Sebastián introduced me to him, and he immediately invited me to an asamblea about the compensation mechanism for the campesinos in Alao within the TMA project, which coincidentally would take place the morning after. I could not have been luckier than that, but I was certainly not complaining. We danced a little more on the traditional indigenous music from the Andes, and after that as a group we concluded the visit of Rutgerd and Bibiana with a beer in Riobamba. There is so much yet to explain which you will hear in the following blog! ¡Hasta pronto!

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