Green Machine Coming Through: “The Beach King,” a giant sand sweeper recently acquired by the Chamber of Commerce of the central Pacific beach of Jacó, recently began making its way across this popular tourist beach to pick up trash and other debris.

Costa Rica's state-run energy provider is looking to take advantage of some of the country's agricultural wastes to produce energy.

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By Gillian Gillers
Tico Times Staff | ggillers@ticotimes.net

The Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) yesterday called for an investigation into activities by the government in its campaign to promote the Central American Free-Trade Agreement with the United States (CAFTA), whose fate will be decided in a national referendum Oct. 7.

The Tribunal asked the Internal Auditing Office at the Planning Ministry to look into whether the government has misused public funds in its campaign.

Elections officials are reacting to a recently leaked e-mail by Vice-President Kevin Casas and National Liberation Party (PLN) legislator Fernando Sánchez to President Oscar Arias and Presidency Minister Rodrigo Arias that suggests strategies to “cover our backs from the scrutiny of the TSE.”

“What was proposed in the memo…would eventually have produced an improper use of public funds,” said Tribunal president Luis Antonio Sobrado, adding that the document was “unacceptable” and “disrespectful” to the TSE.

The e-mail suggests that the government scare voters into supporting CAFTA and withhold resources from mayors whose cantons do not vote for the free-trade pact.

Rodrigo Arias, who is the President's brother, wrote to Sobrado saying he respected the Tribunal's decision and would fully cooperate with the investigation.

The minister said he and his brother do not share the opinions stated in the e-mail, and President Arias told the daily La Nación he did not implement any of the suggestions it contained.

Sánchez apologized yesterday at the Legislative Assembly to “anyone who was offended by the content of the text.”

But Sánchez and Casas also went on the offensive in an editorial published yesterday in the daily La Nación. They said their right to privacy had been violated and that whoever leaked the e-mail should be criminally punished.

“Do we consider, today, the content of the stolen e-mail a good idea? In some aspects yes, in others, evidently no,” they wrote. “But neither of us should ever give up his right to say or write ideas in the private sphere, although what he writes or says might be wrong.”

National Emergency Commission (CNE) workers yesterday headed to Heredia, north of San José, and other parts of the country to assess damage done by recent landslides brought on by heavy rains, according to a statement from the commission. They also met with municipal leaders to see how these accidents can be prevented, according to a statement from the commission.

In Heredia, CNE president Daniel Gallardo met with the mayors of Barva, Santa Bárbara, Heredia Central, Flores and San Rafael.

“The saturation of the ground, the enormous quantity of trash in rivers and ravines and a tropical storm that's passing over the national territory have come together to provoke a large quantity of incidents characterized by floods and landslides,” Sunday and yesterday, when heavy rains hit the Central Valley, Pacific coast and Northern Zone, Gallardo said.

CNE engineers, geologists and other specialists yesterday assessed damage in Heredia. In the canton of Flores, 17 homes were flooded, and five of the families living in them lost everything.

Damage was also reported in the Tilarán area of the northwestern Guanacaste province; in Grecia, northwest of San José; and in the central Pacific Quepos area, along the road between San Miguel and Dos Bocas. The canton of Mora, southwest of San José, also experienced flooding.

-Tico Times

Costa Rica's state-run energy provider is looking to take advantage of some of the country's agricultural wastes to produce energy.

The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) has formed a commission with the Environment and Energy Ministry (MINAE) to study Costa Rica's biomass potential, according to a statement from the institute.

Not all biomass is economically beneficial, and a lot of research is needed to determine the properties of these wastes and estimate the cost involved in using them to produce energy.

Growers of sugar, rice, coffee, pineapple and palm are among those who could be turning some of their wastes into energy. Getting these farmers on board is another step in the process of making this idea a reality, the statement said.

Biomass technology is already being implemented in some areas in Costa Rica. The husk of rice grains is used to produce energy for the process of drying these grains, and in some rural areas, biogas is being produced from livestock waste.