In a house of just a few square meters in the rural area of the municipality of Nossa Senhora das Dores, in the Middle Sertão Sergipano, Maria Vaneide Gomes has more water tanks than people living with her. The husband, two grandchildren and the retired woman share the residence with a few rooms and a series of buckets and reservoirs. The youngest granddaughter, who turned 12, had never seen water in the house's tap until July of this year.
Vaneide and most of her family live in houses throughout the community of Barreiros, which is in the Povoado Volta region. There, reports are that some houses were without water supply for 15 years.
"Usually, the boys who work in the city would come back on motorbikes and bring buckets and barrels of water, or the water truck. They lived off the water truck", reported the elderly woman.
The woman from Sergipe explains that the region is dry, but not as dry as other cities further north, with a semi-arid region more characteristic of the caatinga.
Still according to her, the rain is regular and they even received the construction of the Water for All program, from the Federal Government, in the 2010s. However, the cistern ended up showing a leak, and the rainwater has not been used for a few years.
It was this routine that led the family to accumulate water tanks over the years, until 2026, when water returned to the tap, but not regularly.
Vaneide reports that, currently, the supply alternates, going a whole week with water and another week without anything. A little less than a kilometer away, still in Povoado Volta, José Heleno dos Santos' routine is similar, but the frequency of water, according to him, is more regular.
“It’s still missing, but now we have it here [he said pointing to the water hose], look how beautiful it is: the water inside the house”, he said.
According to a survey by the Water and Sanitation Institute, the municipality of Nossa Senhora das Dores has over 99% of the population served with water supply, which does not mean a regular supply. When it comes to sewage, the panorama — based on data from the National Basic Sanitation Information System (Sinisa 2024) — shows that just over half of the residents, around 53.9% of the population, are served by the service.
The village where Vaneide and José Heleno live does not yet have this infrastructure. But the problem is not restricted to the Rural Zone: within the municipality's headquarters, the reality is even worse, with sewage from a series of residences having no flow, being dumped onto public roads.
A survey by the Water and Sanitation Institute points to 11,778 inhabitants without sewage collection, out of a population of 24,996 people, according to the latest Census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
On Rua José Teles Barreto, in Bairro Fontinhas, for example, what comes out of homes follows a path of bad smell, exposing residents, children and animals to a health and environmental risk. Iguá Sergipe itself, the company responsible for the service, points out that the benefits of interconnection to the sewage network reach public health — by reducing the population's exposure to contaminating agents — and environmental preservation, preventing toxic material from being released into rivers, canals, lagoons, mangroves and the soil.
A study by the Trata Brasil Institute points out that diarrhea, verminosis, skin diseases and those caused by the proliferation of mosquitoes, such as dengue and chikungunya, hospitalized 344 thousand Brazilians in 2024 alone. These are diseases directly linked to failures in water supply and sewage services.
Data from Sinisa 2024, made available by the Ministry of Cities, confirm that only 65.6% of Sergipe's population is served by sewage collection.
The number shows that around 800,000 people in the state do not have access to the service. When the selection is made with the rural population, this rate drops to 36.5%, while in the Urban Zone it reaches 72.8%. This level is still far below the target established six years ago by the Civil Framework for Basic Sanitation, approved in 2020.
The text predicts that, by 2033, 90% of the Brazilian population should have access to sewage treatment and collection. A survey by Instituto Trata Brasil released last year shows that Brazil reached 2025 with almost half of the population without sewage collection or treatment — more than 90 million Brazilians.
To achieve the goals established at the beginning of the decade, investments were announced across the country. However, despite advances, the pace is still insufficient to guarantee universalization by 2033.
A study carried out by Instituto Trata Brasil, in partnership with GO Associados, showed that the average annual investment per inhabitant grew 51% between 2020 and 2024, going from R$90.54 to R$137.02. However, the survey indicates that the value is still far from the approximately R$225 per inhabitant per year estimated to be necessary to achieve the universalization goals.
In Sergipe, water supply and sewage treatment services were privatized after the concession from Companhia de Saneamento de Sergipe (Deso), with operations taken over by Iguá Sergipe in 2025. With a 35-year contract, the company plans to contribute R$6.3 billion in investments.
Iguá Sergipe stated that, in 2025, interventions were carried out through the installation of 16 new pumping systems, such as the one that benefited the community of Maria Vaneide and José Heleno, in addition to 20 km of water mains in the metropolitan region and more than 19 km of expansion of water and sewage networks.
For 2026, approximately R$500 million in investments are planned through works such as new pumping systems, reservoirs and new water mains, in addition to 426 km of expansion of water and sewage networks.
