Idalia's rains recover subway aquifers in Cuban special municipality

 NUEVA GERONA, Cuba, Nueva Gerona, Aug 30 (ACN) The Isle of Youth did not report any damages associated with Idalia -the ninth tropical organism of the current hurricane season-, however, its rains by infiltration contribute to the gradual recovery of subway aquifers.

Yaisel Covarrubias Bravo, delegate of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH by its Spanish acronym) in this special municipality, commented to the Cuban News Agency that from August 27 to 30, the basins captured 14, 690,000 cubic meters (m3) from the rainfall of the meteorological event and its area of influence.

In those 72 hours, eight pluviometric stations registered accumulated rainfall over 300 millimeters (mm), the most significant figure was reported by the Colony Hotel (379.7mm), he said.

He emphasized that the second Cuban island currently holds 159, 74,000 m3 of water in its network of reservoirs, which volume represents 69.6 % of the total filling capacity of the territory.

Of the 14 dams, half of them exceed 90 % of storage and three of them relieve their waters, the engineer said.

Covarrubias Bravo pointed out that up to August 26 the hydrological situation for the Isle of Youth was unfavorable. Rainfall - the only source of surface and subway water supply - from January to that date had been deficient, to the point that some of these reservoirs destined to support important agricultural poles.

In order to support the demand of entities, among which agriculture stands out, the Isle of Youth has a total water storage capacity of 229,600,000 m3.