Top National Park in Costa Rica Faces Possible Closure

The Environmental Ministry Must Rush to Correct a Number of Sanitation Issues in the Park.

The Ministry of Health has threatened to close Manuel Antonio National Park, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, due to the unsanitary conditions found on an official visit. The Ministry placed the clean up responsibility in the hands of the Ministry of the Environment (Minaet), which now has until Feb. 26 to rectify the situation to avoid closure.

During an official visit to the park last week, the regional health ministry of Aguirre found severe deficiencies in the handling of waste waters and unsanitary conditions in public bathrooms. For example, they found that sewage from the park ranger station was being deposited into overflowing septic tanks that drain directly into the ocean, whereas sewage from the visitor bathrooms was being deposited directly into a natural pond within the park. A test performed by the Water Institute (AyA) last October showed an excessive 46,000 coliforms per every 100 mL of water in the pond.

The report also stated that the park doesn’t even own cleaning products or tools, so the bathrooms were left in an unsanitary state with leaks found in the piping. A walk through the park led to the discovery of broken down vehicles that had become a breeding place for dengue mosquitoes. There is also a lack of marked signs on the trails, and those that do exist are in bad condition. Other problems found were related to the excessive amount of park visitors that exceeds the capacity of the park rangers.

In response to the Ministry of Health’s notice, representatives from the Aguirre Chamber of Industrial Commerce and Tourism placed complete blame for the situation in the hands of Minaet, which they said has been incapable of solving the park’s problems despite repeated requests from the Chamber. They also requested more time to put an emergency plan into action to fix the many problems found in the Manuel Antonio National Park.

The Minister of Health, Maria Luisa Avila, said that they will return to the area with the help of the Environmental Tribunal and AyA to check to see if the problems have been corrected. Manuel Antonio National Park attracts some 150,000 visitors every year to its meager 4,000 acre territory. Tourist revenue supports the surrounding area where hundreds of hotels have sprouted up over the years, and the park itself charges per visitor, making it one of the biggest revenue generators in the national park system. However, not all this money is reinvested into the park, as national park funds are pooled together and divided evenly among them. The park has suffered a lack of personnel due to limited funds for quite a while now.