Water Quality Program

Introduction to the Metaproblem

In Costa Rica, only 15% of wastewater is treated. The rest reaches rivers and oceans largely unmeasured, including the coastal waters where people swim and where marine life depends on healthy conditions.
Contamination that isn't tracked can't be managed, and most of the coastline has never been tested at all.
This is a crisis of invisibility: pollution spreads unchecked while the data needed to confront it simply doesn't exist.

Core Problem in the Bioregion

Our monitoring takes place within the Ostional National Wildlife Refuge, one of the most important nesting sites in the world for the olive ridley sea turtle, and home to a living community that draws more than 50,000 visitors a year.

Rapid development has outpaced wastewater infrastructure. This directly affects:

• Public health of residents and visitors
• The olive ridley sea turtle nesting habitat
• The long-term viability of coastal tourism

In 2019, residents and visitors reported foamy, foul-smelling water and illness after swimming — which is what prompted WCA to begin testing in the first place.

Proposed Solution

Since 2019, our weekly monitoring across four sites has identified below-grade septic systems as the primary source of contamination in Guiones.

WCA runs a community-based water quality monitoring lab that tests for bacterial contamination every week, using methods approved by the World Health Organization. This consistent testing does two things:

1. Tells us where contamination is coming from, so solutions can be targeted precisely
2. Lets us measure whether the wastewater solutions we implement are actually improving water quality over time

Stopping the testing means losing the ability to see the problem — and losing the evidence of progress.

This campaign funds one monitoring site for one full year: $5,000.

What Makes It Unique

This isn't a study that ends when the funding does. The lab, protocols, and trained community volunteer network have been running since 2019.

• The methodology was deliberately chosen so trained non-scientists can run it — the community isn't a subject of the research, it's the one doing it
• Annual continuity matters: water quality data is only meaningful as a continuous record
• A gap in the year isn't partial data — it's a break in a baseline that took years to build
• Funding a full year keeps that record unbroken and comparable to everything measured before

Why People Should Donate

Monitoring is the foundation everything else stands on. The remediation work — and the ability to prove it's working — both depend on the consistent data underneath them.

This core work is funded year to year, from a mix of donations, business partnerships, and grants, so no single source can leave a hole.

$5,000 covers one site for one year: every weekly test, the supplies, the communication, and the in-depth analysis of the results.

Call to Action

Fund a full year of monitoring at one site.

Donate before December 31 to keep this community's water quality on the record, and keep the evidence coming that solutions are working.

Join us. Help keep Ostional's water quality on the record.