Costa Rica’s soccer fans breathed a big sigh of relief on Tuesday as “La Sele” had a decent outing against the team ranked nubmer 2 in the world behind Brazil, the Czech Republic.

Most commentators and fans were pleased with the Tico’s defense, which gave up “only” 1 goal in the loss.  The goal, however, occured after many of the starters had been replaced.  Fans were still disappointed that the team did not score, but are now optomistic that the Ticos will make a good showing in the World Cup opener on June 9th.

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

A new highway from San José to San Ramón will begin next summer season and be finished in 24 months, according to Marco Vargas, minister of Coordinación Interinstitucional.

The $240 million job is in the hands of a concessionaire, which will erect five or six toll stations collecting about $1 at each. What is called summer begins in December in Costa Rica.

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The country has received offers from European railway companies who want to improve the urban train now serving the metropolitan area.

City and central government officials met Tuesday to discuss possible ways to improve the limited service now being offered by the rail service. There are only four trips between Pavas and San Pedro each day, although a Tibás-Heredia route is in the works.

Casa Presidencial said that the Czech firm Inekon Group A.S. has made a $120 million offer that would include a concession.

Inekon makes rail cars and urban trams, but the firm also has planning and financing units. It had been in joint ventures with Skoda Transport Technology of Pilsen until a much publicized breakup three years ago.

Anyone who has visited Central Europe probably has ridden on a Skoda car. Portland, Ore., has been considering purchases from Inekon for its urban lines.

The officials who met on the concept were Rodrigo Arias, minister of the Presidencia; Johnny Araya, mayor of San José; Bruno Stagno, minister of Relaciones Exteriores; Miguel Carabaguiaz, executive president of  the Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles; Viviana Martín, vice minister of Transportes, and Luis Diego Vargas, technical secretary of the Consejo General de Concesión Pública.

What the officials seek are ways to move people without the estimated 3,000 buses a day that come in to San José.

Concessions are a way for governments to get foreign investment to build their roads, bridges and railways.  The private firm makes the investment and then collects on the revenue over time.

The major problems are that Costa Rica’s law on concession is being changed in the Asamblea Legislativa and that previous concessions have not been very successful.

For example, Juan Santamaría airport is being developed and managed on a 20-year concession granted in 1999 to the British firm Alterra Partners. But the relationship with Costa Rican transportation officials has been rocky.

The original Costa Rican railway service was built on a concession. U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith obtained a 99-year concession from the cash-strapped Costa Rican government of 1884. He also received title to some 800,000 acres in the Provincia de Limón and control of the Limón port. Keith used the land to grow bananas and the railway to haul them to the port. From his efforts grew the United Fruit Co.

The current urban train runs on the route laid out by Keith’s engineers.

Ministers of the government met Monday in a strategy session over the free trade treaty with the United States.

They were responding to a comment from an outspoken union leader who said the future of the treaty will be decided on the streets and not in the Asamblea Legislativa, according to a statement from Casa Presidencial.

In addition to the ministers deeply involved in the treaty, at the meeting were Fernando Berrocal Soto, minister of Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública, and Francisco Morales, the minister of Trabajo. Also attending were legislative leaders for Liberación Nacional, the government party.

Marco Vinicio Ruíz, minister of Comercio Exterior, said the works and security ministers were there to safeguard the rights of all citizens.

Rodrigo Arias Sánchez, the minister of the Presidencia, said that the words from union leader Albino Vargas were very grave and that there could be a movement to destabilize the nation.

Vargas is the secretary general of the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos y Privados. He was among those union leaders who led blockades that closed off major roads in August 2004. Some of that protest was over the free trade treaty, but some was over pay raises awarded by the government, the mandatory revisión tecnica and the rising price of fuel.

Former president Abel Pacheco was so concerned with possible social unrest that he delayed sending the treaty to the assembly for more than a year. The assembly must ratify the document for it to take effect.

Fiasco. Disaster. Embarrassing.  Are just some of the nicer words being used to describe the National Soccer Teams performance in friendly matches leading up to the World Cup opener against Germany June 9th.  While the loss last week to the Catalan selection stung, the 4-0 whipping by the Ukranians has cast doubts on the entire process.  The local press blames the directors, coach and players for the situation.

Sunday’s match started off well for the Ticos, the first 25 minutes they controlled the Ukranian attack and the ball.  However they never generated dangerous options for Gomez or Saborio.  The following 15 minutes were a disaster.  At the 28th minute goalkeeper Wardy Alfaro was unable to control a floating ball in the area and the home field advantage came into play as Ukranian striker Nazarenko controlled the ball with his left hand and then shot a worm burner past the scrambling Alfaro.

5 minutes later a lack of communication between Alajuela teammates Marin and Alfaro led to a steal and goal by forward Vorobey. And almost immediately the Ukranians sentenced the match when Kalynychenko put in an easy header after Alfaro rejected a shot by Nazarenko.

The good news for the Ticos is that because of injuries and experimentation, the starting 11 have not yet played together in any of the friendly matches.  Coach Alexandre Guimaraes has promised that the 11 who will start against Germany June 9th will play on Tuesday against the Czech Republic.  According to the coach, the defeat hurt the team emotionally, because of the margin, but there is no need to panic.

“We can improve and I am completely convinced that we are going to have a good showing in the World Cup, there is no doubt. The team that will come out against theCzech Republic is the team that will open against Germany. “

Not every self-designated residency expert does what he or she is paid to do, and immigration officials have filed complaints with the national prosecutor’s office in cases where expats have been swindled.

The latest case — and the first complaint filed by the new administration — involves Brazilians who appear to have been the victims of a scam. Immigration officials found that these residents were carrying false residency cédulas and had false residency permissions stamped in their passports.

A summary from the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública characterized the Brazilians as victims of a scam.

A U.S. expat two months ago was jailed briefly when inspectors from the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería found that the documents he carried were forgeries. The U.S. expat said he had paid a man he thought was a lawyer to obtain residency for him several years ago.

The man was seeking a decision by the Sala IV constitutional court so he could stay in the country. Others were believed to be in the same boat.

Johnny Marín, the former immigration director, and Roxana Quesada, the former subdirector, filed 85 complaints with the Ministerio Pública, and the majority of these cases involved irregularities in applications for residency visas, said the ministry of which Migración is a part.

Mario Zamora, the new immigration director, said that he expected he will strengthen the existing controls and have better coordination with Costa Rican consuls overseas so the number of these types of cases can be reduced.

Officials involved with immigration said that their first step was to attack corruption within the agency. This suggests that the fake documents and the fake residency stamps in passports are part of an inside deal.

An open secret in Costa Rica is that certain individuals use immigration stamps to illegally renew tourist visas. Such services are used mainly by people who are working here illegally in the first place and choose not to travel outside the country for 72 hours to renew the tourism permission.

Some of these immigration stamps are forgeries, and others have been taken or stolen from the immigration agency.  But still others are in the hands of immigration employees who conduct a side business of renewing visas.

Two immigration workers have been detained on the allegation that they were making adjustments in the agency’s data base to reflect the fake stamps that were being placed in the passports of expats. These individuals are believed to be talking to prosecutors.

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

Efforts to ratify the free trade treaty with the United States suffered a jolt Thursday when deputies of the former government party expressed uncertainty about their support of the treaty.

The deputies are members of the Partido Unidad Social Cristiana, the party of former president Abel Pacheco. There are five of them who managed to secure legislative positions as their party took a trouncing in the Feb. 5 national elections.

Ana Helena Chacón Echeverría, the leader of the group, told  Marco Vinicio Ruiz, minister of Comercio Exterior, that the party is not married to approval of the treaty, according to a report from the Asamblea Legislativa.

Approval of the treaty is a legislative goal of the Partido Liberación Nacional of President Óscar Arias Sánchez. His minister is meeting with various political factions to gain their support.

Support from the Unidad deputies was considered a given in that the Pacheco administration negotiated the document. Ms. Chacón was a vice minister in that administration.

However, Ms. Chacón said that her party’s support of the treaty was conditioned on a development agenda that permits the country to move ahead. She said she was speaking about a legislative agenda that fights poverty and provides increase in educational spending.

“We are here for you to convince us of the necessity of the TLC . . . At this moment I am not convinced,” she said, referring to the treaty by its Spanish initials.

Liberación has 25 deputies in the current assembly. Although proponents of the treaty say that the document needs but a majority of the 57 deputies, opponents will certainly carry any vote of approval less than 38 votes to the Sala IV constitutional court. There is a strong legal case that a two-third vote is necessary, based on constitutional requirements. To get that number, Liberación needs every Unidad vote because the Partido Acción Ciudadana of Ottón Solís opposes the measure. That faction has 17 lawmakers.

Liberación has secured the backing of the Libertarian Movement and its six deputies. To get 38 votes, treaty proponents need all of Liberacion’s votes, all of Unidad and all of the Libertarians, plus votes from two of the four deputies in the legislature representing minor parties.

Meanwhile, Thursday, Libertarians were talking with liberal members of the European Parliament who were urging approval of the U.S. free trade treaty. Europeans want a treaty, too, with Central America and Costa Rica.

At the west side of town Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Interamerican Development Bank, met with President Arias and later told newspeople that the Central American countries that have ratified the treaty already are seeing an increase in external investment.

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

More than 225 employees have quit the nation’s insurance monopoly this week, officials said Thursday.

The employees are leaving because they think that the Sala IV constitutional court will decide to put a top on the severance pay they now get. Now the employees when they leave get a year’s pay for each year they have worked at the agency, the Instituto Nacional de Seguros.

Other agencies pay a similar amount up to eight years, but employees of the institute known as INS have negotiated a special deal over the years. The special payment apparently is valid even if the employee is fired for cause.

Some of those who have quit this week are entitled to amounts up to $300,000. The action this week highlights the special benefits many public employees have been receiving.

The Sala IV in the last two weeks have decided a number of cases that have been brought challenging the constitutionality of special deals for public employees. The court ordered, for example, that employees of the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz, the electric company, have to pay full price for household power use. They had been paying one-half.

The Sala IV also ordered the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social to collect full social security payments from its employees.

INS is one of those state institutions whose employees have been opposed to the free trade treaty because the agreement would open the insurance market to private competition. The agency also has been criticized for its abundance of paperwork.

The exit of employees may produce a streamlining  effect on the organization. Officials are planning to review the employment needs of the organization over the next 30 days.

Employees rallied briefly at the INS building in north San José Thursday. Officials said they had plenty of money to pay off exiting employees. INS employees include firemen and accident inspectors who show up at even minor mishaps.

By Leland Baxter-Neal, Tico Times Staff

After several decades of proposals, studies, inactivity and changes, the Boruca Hydroelectric Project appears closer than ever to becoming a reality – though not everybody likes the idea. Despite a relocation of the controversial dam, intended to lessen its impact, environmental and indigenous groups maintain their resistance to the project, which they say will do more damage than good.

The Boruca project looks to capitalize on the country’s largest water basin, the Grande de Térraba River basin, in the center of the Southern Zone. The proposal now being considered would involve the relocation of 1,068 people and the flooding of indigenous land, according to the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), which oversees the production, transmission and supply of electricity in Costa Rica.

The 631-megawatt (MW) project, as currently envisioned, would be the second-largest hydroelectric project in Central America behind a 660-MW project in Nicaragua, according to ICE, and is bringing the debate over Costa Rica’s energy policy to the forefront.

Officials highlight the project’s importance to Costa Rica’s energy production: the dam would increase the capacity of the nation’s electricity infrastructure by 30%, which they say would allow the country to satisfy its growing internal demand, giving Costa Rica independence from fossil fuels. In addition, ICE officials say, Costa Rica would produce a surplus of energy for the first several years of Boruca’s operation that could be sold to other countries for a profit.

Those opposed to the dam say Costa Rica must find another way, and point to negative environmental and social impacts they say outweigh whatever benefits the huge hydroelectric project would bring.

According to the director of the Boruca project, Marco Tapia, the dam is still under consideration, and no final decisions will be made until studies of its potential environmental and social impact are finished. However, the incoming executive president of ICE, Jorge Gutiérrez, recently told the business daily La República that beginning construction on the project is a top priority.

The Dam History

The idea of capitalizing on the Grande de Térraba River basin has been studied since the 1960s, and was proposed on a much larger scale in the 1970s. Most of the power that would have been generated in the original proposal was destined to fuel private aluminum production in Costa Rica. That proposal was abandoned in the early 1980s when the aluminum company withdrew its plans for business here and the international economic crisis made it unfeasible. It was again reconsidered in the early 1990s for the production of energy for exportation to Mexico, but “the conditions weren’t there” for the project to take off, Tapia explained.

The Boruca studies were taken up yet again in the late 1990s and in 2000 officials identified a section of the Grande de Térraba River as an ideal location for the dam, and put it at the top of a list of options under the name Boruca-Cajón option.

After extensive study, however, it was discarded last year in favor of a second option, called the Boruca-Veraguas option, which ICE claims would have less environmental and social impact than previous proposals.

The hotly protested Boruca-Cajón option – with a price tag of $1.4 billion – would have created a 10,700-hectare reservoir above a hydroelectric dam on the Térraba River, approximately 13 kilometers east of Palmar Norte in the Pacific province of Puntarenas, near the small town Cajón (not to be confused with the larger Cajón, further north). The project’s potential would have been 709 MW, making it the largest hydroelectric project in Central America.

However, one third of the land to be submerged was indigenous land, and the project necessitated the relocation of multiple indigenous communities, whose leaders organized and protested the project (TT, March 9, 2001). ICE estimated that 1,943 people – including more than 800 indigenous people – would have been displaced, mostly Rey Curré inhabitants. According to information from the Ditso Association of Popular Initiatives, a nonprofit organization for indigenous and campesino rights, more than 1,000 indigenous residents would be directly affected.

Environmentalists charged that the dam would also harm the health of the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica’s jewel of biodiversity. A two-year study by the World Conservation Union found that the dam would endanger the 30,000-hectare Térraba-Sierpe National Wetlands downstream, fed by sediment and water from the Grande de Térraba River (TT, Oct. 8, 2004).

In addition, the reservoir would have rendered useless 36.2 kilometers of the vital Inter-American Highway, the principal overland shipping route through Central America, which would have had to be rerouted.

The Veraguas Option

A Colombian engineering firm contracted by ICE to evaluate the project recommended the electricity institute discard the Cajón option for some of the same reasons listed by opponents, and proposed the less-costly Veraguas option.

This new proposal – at a reduced cost of $979 million – was put to ICE in 2004 and moved the dam further upstream onto the General River, which joins with the Coto Brus to create the Grande de Térraba. With a small reduction in capacity to 631 MW, the dam’s impact would be significantly reduced, ICE officials say, particularly in terms of indigenous land.

The water from the reservoir would be released 13.2 kilometers southeast of Pilas, near Palmar Sur, after being diverted through a subterranean tunnel. The turbines for producing the electricity will be located inside this tunnel.

According to ICE, the Veraguas option would require the relocation of 1,068 people – less than 3% of them indigenous, and not a single indigenous community – and would flood only 657 hectares of indigenous land, (nearly 3,000 hectares less than under the Cajón option).

Tapia explained that the indigenous people who own the affected land, and others who would be affected by the dam, will be compensated – though exactly how must still be worked out and would be part of negotiations planned for later this year.

In addition to a lesser impact on people, the reservoir itself shrinks by more than 50% to 6,002 hectares under the Veraguas option, affects only 3.6 kilometers of the Inter-American Highway and would have a much lighter impact on downstream wetlands, according to ICE.

Despite these reductions in the dam’s impact, indigenous and environmental groups continue to oppose the Boruca Hydroelectric Project.

Environmental Concerns

Enrique Rivera, of the Térraba indigenous group, travels to different communities to speak out against the dam, attempting to counter what he characterizes as a better-funded public-relations push by ICE in favor of the project. According to Rivera, the new option is no better than the old one.

“In reality, the company is looking for less costs and less resistance,” Rivera told The Tico Times. “But the environmental effects are going to be the same.”

One concern that Rivera and others opposed to the dam mention is the effect it would have on the environment and people downstream. According to Tapia, the water level of the 21-kilometer stretch of the General River downstream between the dam and where the General meets with the Coto Brus River to create the Grande de Térraba would be reduced to approximately 10% of its existing average volume.

Rivera said the decreased water levels would endanger the health of wildlife below the dam, as well as the livelihood of people who depend on those animals.

Tapia acknowledged that the stretch of river would not be able to sustain the same amount of life as before, but said that “hardly anybody” lives in the area, and ICE is still studying the potential impact.

Another concern is that the creation of a large reservoir would lead to climatic changes in the area. As the water sits still, the sun would heat sediment and vegetation that gets caught in the reservoir, and the decomposition would release greenhouse gasses into the air, Rivera explained. The indigenous leader warned that the average temperature of the area would rise, trees would die and there would be “many plagues of mosquitoes.”

This climate-change concern has been raised in the international debate over hydroelectric dams as well. The World Commission on Dams, an international commission that was formed to study hydroelectric projects, bought this up in its report, released in 2000. A research paper released in 2002 by the environmental organization International Rivers Network stated that some of the worst reservoirs in tropical countries “contribute many times more to global warming than coal plants generating the same amounts of power.”

The International Hydropower Association, a hydropower industry association, however, claims that “several alarmist publications” skewed the research by choosing the worst-case scenarios. The association also said most hydroelectric dams have significantly fewer emissions than fossil-fuel plants producing the same amount of electricity and have similar emissions to natural floodplains.

Tapia said that emissions on a large scale occur only when the reservoir is relatively shallow and the type of organic material “favors a decomposition that generates these gasses.” The Boruca dam, he said, would not have these conditions, except near the shore, where special measures would be taken to limit the effect, such creating shade for the shallow areas.

“I leave (the specifics) to the specialists,” Tapia said. “But they can take measures.”

Social Changes

Dam opponents have also raised concerns about the social impact of the dam. Rivera worries that a construction project of the magnitude proposed by ICE would flood the region – which both he and Tapia characterized as one of the poorest in Costa Rica and lacking in many basic services – with outsiders. The area, he said, “is not prepared for this overpopulation.”

In addition to concerns about more alcohol and drug abuse as well as prostitution amongst the local population, Rivera said the influx of outsiders – which he says would be between 3,000-5,000 people – would threaten the cultural identity of the indigenous people living in the area, because they would likely begin stray from their traditional way of living.

The jobs, he continued, would mean more money for residents, but would only be temporary.

“The government is going to see the solution to (the area’s) development in employed work for ICE, and so they are not going to worry about productive programs for agricultural development,” Rivera said. “They have said that we are going to have a lot of economic advantages, but it isn’t true. There isn’t one guarantee at this moment that it’s true.”

Tapia says that many of the same concerns could be looked at as opportunities instead.

“What is the prospect that in the next 10 years, there is going to be an investment of this size in the area?” Tapia asked. “The project will improve the infrastructure – in roads, electricity, sewers, telecommunications and health.”

Tapia added that most workers could come from local communities, and ICE plans to offer training and education that will prepare workers to “reinsert” themselves in their traditional work, “but with better infrastructure and better opportunities.”

“If the negative impacts are more than the positive ones, we shouldn’t do the project,” Tapia said. “But our studies indicate that this is not the case. The effects are manageable and sustainable in the long term, and the opportunities for the people and the country are very big.”

What Next?

According to the Boruca-project director, ICE is steadily moving forward with the project, but is still in the researching phase and has multiple studies to conclude before it will be ready to make a concrete proposal to the people of the area. Tapia acknowledged that ICE still needs to speak more with communities ahead of the negotiations planned for later this year.

In addition, ICE has yet to decide on either a financing or management scheme for the plant.The soonest construction would begin is 2008, Tapia said, and the dam would begin to function until 2015 or 2016.