After months of uncertainty, residents of the small Caribbean-slope community of El Cairo can once again drink their own tap water.

Costa Rican narcotics officials have a watchful eye on the 2.5 metric tons of pseudoephedrine and clorpheniramine seized by police this week on the strong suspicion they were to be used to manufacture designer drugs, such as speed.

Perrozompopo in Concert
Rock, tonight and tomorrow, 10 p.m., Jazz Café, San Pedro.

December Workshops
Kids 3-11, Bugs, 9 a.m.-noon, INBioparque, Santo Domingo , Heredia. Info: 507-8107, 507-8116.

By Amanda Roberson
Tico Times Staff | aroberson@ticotimes.net

The annual San Pedro open-air art fair that was about to be canceled for the first time in 12 years is back on again in a new spot.

Planners of the event this week received a green light from the nearby Municipality of Curridabat, east of San José, to hold the event at Plaza José María Zeledón.

Organizers had called off the event late last month after the Municipality of Montes de Oca denied them the permits necessary to have the festival at San Pedro's Plaza Roosevelt, where it had been held for the past 11 years. It was originally scheduled to take place there from Nov. 28-Dec.2.

Curridabat Mayor Edgar Mora called the festival's organizers upon hearing the news and offered to host the event on his turf, said festival planner Mario Martín.

“In two hours, the Curridabat Municipality resolved what the Municipality of Montes de Oca couldn't resolve in three months,” Martín said.

More than 400 artists are preparing their stands at the plaza. The festival begins Friday and runs through Dec. 18 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. If all goes well this year, Martín said organizers plan to continue holding the event in Curridabat.

For patients waiting months, sometimes years, for an operation, a new measure is under way to speed things up next year. The Social Security System (Caja) is to inject ¢1 billion ($2 million) into public health care to pay surgeons to work overtime, from 4-10 p.m., every day of the week, the daily La Nación reported.

This could bring solace to the almost 50,000 people whose names trail down the combined waiting lists of 19 public hospitals, according to the total collected in September.

The first phase of the plan will take effect in January at five hospitals: Calderón Guardia (with more than 4,200 in the queue), the National Children's Hospital (almost 3,000), Max Peralta (nearly 500), Tony Facio (1,000) and San Juan de Dios (over 8,000).

San Juan de Dios already got a head start, scheduling doctors to do late-afternoon/early-evening operations in August. By November, surgeons were able to slice the waiting list by 500 patients, the bulk of whom sought orthopedic surgery, the hospital's interim director Ileana Balmaceda told the Costa Rican daily.

-Tico Times

After months of uncertainty, residents of the small Caribbean-slope community of El Cairo can once again drink their own tap water.

Recent tests conducted by Costa Rica's National Water and Sewer Institute (AyA) confirmed the local aqueduct free of agrochemicals that had prompted a drinking water ban earlier this year.

According to Darner Mora, director of the institute's water testing laboratory, tests came up clean for three pesticides – Bromacil, Duirón and Triadimefon -- chemicals used in large amounts in surrounding pineapple plantations.

Further tests, scheduled for this month and next, will continue to monitor the regional aqueduct.

Last month, officials argued that even trace concentrations of contaminants were unacceptable in public water supplies. Local pineapple companies countered that the chemicals were present, but only in levels considered safe by international standards.

The Public Health Ministry settled the dispute – closing the water supply and forcing delivery by cistern truck to the affected communities.

The number of hectares planted with pineapple increased more than any other crop last year - and 208% since 2000.

Costa Rica's industrial pineapple plantations are ravenous consumers of agrochemicals, according to a recent report released by the National University (UNA). On average, according to scientists, they consume 24.5 kg of herbicide per hectare per year – almost triple that of coffee crops.

By Alex Leff
Tico Times Staff | aleff@ticotimes.net