What seemed to be the fulfillment of one of the wishes of the Valdivia commune (Cradle of Millenary Culture) has become, amidst nice bureaucratic speeches, a "white elephant" of which there seemed to be no more in our country (Ecuador).
The new Valdivia Aquarium, which began to be built in September 2009 and in May 2010 was already announced in the media as being ready, never worked, as it did not even withstand the initial tests; and in that small space it is possible to find all the characteristics of inefficiency and poorly done work, from design errors, lack of basic equipment and instruments, and use of deficient materials.
During a visit by the Community Unit of Revista Ballenita Sì Online together with Aquarium authorities and children from the Eco-Club Valdivia, it was possible to verify that the new aquarium is really deteriorating at an accelerated pace because there is no maintenance, turning it into a "white elephant" made with taxpayers' money.
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| While the New Aquarium is unusable nearly two years due to design flaws and structural (above); the activities They take place in the provisional Aquarium (below) which has no specification technique. PHOTOS Courtesy The Coaster |
«The tourism authorities have deceived us. They told us that they would solve the construction problems in 6 months at the most. We are now going on 2 years and nothing has happened. They came here a couple of months ago to put some plants in this temporary aquarium, we did not let them. We demand that they give us the new aquarium in good condition. Look how we are working here, we have no equipment, the animals are in small spaces, the animals are suffering», mentioned one of the biologists responsible for the Aquarium. Among the problems that can be observed we list:
DESIGN:
- First aid counter too small and attached to the wall (when the logical thing is that it should be a large space and in the center of the room, so that it is possible to go around the sick animal) BASIC
- Some of the tanks do not have shaded areas for the animals to protect themselves from the sun. BASIC
- The water recirculation pumps are located right on the narrow path where the visitor would pass through. BASIC
STRUCTURAL:
- The acrylic glass of the animal pools is bent and cracked. This is a very basic point, since we are talking about an aquarium. These acrylic glasses did not even withstand the first test. BASIC
- The wood of the piles is already moth-eaten in several places. BASIC
- Cracks can be found in floors and buildings. Many of these cracks are in the tanks themselves. BASIC
EQUIPMENT
- The laboratory and first aid rooms are just that, simple rooms. According to the community members, they were informed that the equipment would be in a second stage. …?!?!?
- In swimming pools only mechanical filters have been installed, when the optimal option for aquariums is to also have biological filters and UV filters.
On the other hand, we were able to contact Paola Gálvez, Undersecretary of Tourism, who stated that the Comptroller's Office and the Internal Audit Office of the Ministry have already been notified to take action on this issue, and that as Undersecretary, representatives of the Valdivia commune were invited to participate in an Interdisciplinary Commission to analyze the issue, but that the representatives of the commune attended only once. She also added that she has reports from the Ministry of the Environment confirming that the animals are not suffering any harm from being in the temporary aquarium.
At the moment, leaders of the Aquarium and the Commune are organizing a cultural-artistic-environmental event for July 24 that aims to disseminate and make public the current situation of the provisional aquarium and the new aquarium of Valdivia; whoThey attribute the responsibility for these failures to errors in the architectural design by the consultancy firm ECOBIOTEC, the construction company GROUPREMA and the Executive Entity Subsecretaria de Turismo (as stated on the Aquarium's website).
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