CHUNGUNGO, Chile -- Crouched in his thriving vegetable patch, Guido Alvarez whistles and sings as his trowel pokes the earth on the outskirts of this fishing village in northern Chile. The rows of vegetables give a green flush to this otherwise dry stretch of Pacific coastline.
"Look what money and science can do for people like us," he says. "It's a miracle that land that was once barren is now blooming."
Chungungo is home to a pilot project that is raising hopes in
rain-deprived coastal regions around the world. On a nearby mountaintop, a team of Canadian and Chilean scientists is "harvesting" water from the dense fog bank that seldom yields rain.
The idea is not new. In Chile, the Quechua Indians used to place buckets under trees to collect water left by the fog. And 100 miles from Chungungo, the Fray Jorge National Forest survives in a desert by gleaning moisture from an ever-present mist that almost never drops rain.
"The theory was always there, but this is the first time that anyone has harnessed fog on such a scale," says Waldo Canto, regional director of Chile's National Forest Corp.
The experiment, known as the Fogwater Collection System (FCS), is disarmingly simple. Seventy-five sheets of nylon mesh are ranged like billboards along a mountain ridge behind Chungungo. When fog strikes the netting, water droplets form and then trickle into collector tubes. The water is filtered and funneled through pipes to the village.
After two years, the record harvest for a single day is 16,000 gallons.
The FCS -- designed for coastal areas with cold sea currents and mountains nearby -- is inexpensive and simple enough for even the least sophisticated communities. There already are 47 sites, from Mexico to Peru to Namibia, considered suitable candidates for the technology.
"It's not a panacea for every water-shortage problem known to man," says Oscar Fuentes, an economist involved with the project. "But it can help immensely in zones with the right geography and climate."
The scientific success is only part of the story: Chungungo is also a testing ground for the economic changes brought by a "water boom."
For years, the only source of fresh water in Chungungo was a truck that came once a week to fill the steel drums at each house.
The price was so high that every drop was rationed. Sometimes thetruck failed to come.
Now, most homes in the village are fitted with taps, supplying pure water at 25 percent of the old price. A glass of water is no longer a luxury or a health hazard.
Chungungo's dirt tracks are lined with fledgling trees, and its houses are ringed with flower and vegetable gardens.
Forests are being planted in the mountains.
Instead of swapping fish for produce in faraway markets, villagers now fill their cooking pots with home-grown vegetables.
They also keep chickens and goats.
Already, disease is receding, thanks to better diet and cleaner water.
Standing among the rose bushes that cradle her small wooden house, Mathilde Zerricuota blesses the day the scientists came to town. "We used to go days without washing anything, and our children often had stomach and skin problems," she says. "Now we live with dignity."
Managing its own water network has also taught Chungungo the virtue of community action.
Soon after a Water Committee was created to oversee billing, a Neighbors Association was organized to defend users' rights.
By lobbying with one voice, the village won housing grants and access to the electricity grid.
Everyone is hatching a project. With outside help, six fishermen have built a small plant to process and package their catch.
Outsiders are building holiday cottages.
Since the taps were turned on, the population has grown to nearly 500, from 350.
But the fairy tale has its villains. Traveling herdsmen sometimes break into the pipeline. And some villagers have had their service cut off after running up large bills.