Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Some 97 commercial businesses in Playa Tamarindo have abided by the sanitary measures of the Ministerio de Salud (health ministry), which has led to a significant decrease in the contamination of the beach water.
The news was released by Juan Luis Sánchez, director regional del Área de Salud de Santa Cruz, who said that there remain only 15 businesses to comply and eight closed of the total 120 businesses found to be violating the health measures.
Playa Tamarindo lost its Bandera Azul (Blue Flag) designation in 2007 for contamination of the beaches with sewer water. The Bandera Azul is assigned by the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía (Minae) – environment and energy ministry.
Darner Mora, director of the Laboratorio de Aguas de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA) – laboratory of the water and sewer utility – confirmed that the water contamination levels of Tamarindo are much lower now than last year.
Mora said that the tests on the water were carried out three weeks ago and the results were good, adding that one testing is not enough for a final conclusion.
Mora added that his department has to now wait for the heavy season rains to carry out more tests to determine is the septic tanks are holding and not dumping sewage into the ocean.
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Thursday, June 26th, 2008
To promote the consciousness of Costa Ricans, this morning the vice-ministra de Transportes, Viviana Martín, followed live by the Telenoticias television news cameras, took the bus to work on this first day of expanded vehicular restrictions of San José.
The vice-minister walked from her home in Sabanilla to the nearest bus stop, escorted by two bodyguards and a television crew, she had to wait for the second bus passing as the first was already to full. This was at 6:10am. The walk from her home to the bus stop took about the same time she would normally take to drive to her office in downtown San José. (more…)
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Thursday, June 26th, 2008
A new system of early forecasts for storms and bad weather, with alerts every 30 minutes, will be in operation this summer in Central America and southern Mexico, the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations announced yesterday.
The system, dubbed NextStorm, will provide short-term forecasts of powerful electrical storms or heavy rainfall likely to cause flooding.
The news came while Costa Rica is still fixing up the damage in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Alma.
NextStorm represents “a major advance in putting earth observation data and other tools to work in protecting people and livelihoods in southern Mexico and throughout Central America,” GEO Secretariat director José Achache said.
”We’re thinking in terms of text-message alerts to cell phones and other kinds of easily accessible announcements, all with the aim of minimizing or avoiding injuries, deaths and economic losses due to bad weather,” said Jacqueline Schafer, assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is heading the project.
The new system, according to Panamanian meteorologist Annette Quinn, “will provide greater security for the region. Ports and air terminals, in particular, will benefit, while dock workers will be better protected against lightning.”
For two years the new system has been on trial to identify and analyze in a period of between 30 and 60 minutes the specific elements that each storm is bringing, such as lightning, strong winds, turbulence or sudden floods.
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