Ranchería River

The Ranchería River (Spanish: Río Ranchería) is a river located in northern La Guajira Department, Colombia. Born in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta southern steps flows south, abruptly turns northeast and then north where it finally flows into the Caribbean Sea. It is the main river of La Guajira Department and has great significance for the Wayuu people.

A large dam, the "El Cercado", was first proposed in the 1950s in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, as an irrigation source for agribusiness and for the population of at least nine municipalities. The Sierra Nevada Indigenous communities protested the dam, which they regarded as a systematic appropriation of the river by landowners and the coal mining industry (the world's largest open-pit coalmine, Cerrejón, is allowed around 16% of the river's volumetric flow). It was completed in the mid 2000s (picture)

The river flows down to a region of water scarcity in the semi-desert lowlands to the north and west. Four water management phases were envisaged, but by 2021 only dam construction has been completed and pipelines for irrigation, which are not connected. Irrigation connections, aqueducts and a seven megawatts hydroelectric plant are programmed but there are significant accusations that they have been uncompleted due to corruption and mismanagement.