Water law initiative 6816 and its status in Congress
- Energy, water and telecommunications
- Industrial water, wells and discharges
- not audited
Initiative 6816, drafted by the executive (MARN) after the 'National Water Process' that took in more than 1,000 citizen proposals (November 2025), has 215 articles. It creates a Water Superintendency with functional, financial and administrative autonomy, which registers rights, issues use licenses (exclusive, renewable and transferable; water remains public property), sets extraction restrictions, charges fees and imposes penalties. The fee for large users is progressive: 10% in year 1 rising to 100% in year 7 (art. 53); it recognizes pre-existing uses, including indigenous and ancestral systems (arts. 24-25). Procedural status: the full Congress took it up and referred it to the Environment and Natural Resources Committee (exact date to be confirmed); CACIF has asked for a technical working group and deputies propose consulting on it before issuing an opinion.
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- Artículos de la iniciativa 6816
- 215
- Canon progresivo para grandes usuarios
- 10% año 1 → 100% año 7 (art. 53)
- Propuestas ciudadanas recibidas
- >1,000
- Estado legislativo
- remitida a Comisión de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales; sin dictamen
Caveat
Sources
- No-Ficción, Siete preguntas para entender la iniciativa de la Ley de Aguas
- CES, Iniciativa Ley de Aguas: importancia, desafíos, esfuerzos actuales y resultados de consultas
- La Hora, MARN recibe más de 1 mil propuestas ciudadanas para integrar al expediente de Ley de Aguas
- Participación Ciudadana, Proceso Nacional del Agua
- Prensa Libre, Ley de Aguas: CACIF pide mesa técnica y diputados plantean socializar la iniciativa antes de dictaminar
- Infobae, La empresa municipal de agua exige presas y acueductos en el debate de la Ley de Aguas
Related records
- Absence of a general water law and national extraction fee
- Right to drill a well and ownership of the water (Civil Code)
- Industrial self-supply and the 2,000 wells of Guatemala's valley
- Procedure to drill an industrial well in the metropolitan area
- Cost and regulation of the municipal well-drilling license
- MARN environmental license costs and categories
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.