Ing. Miguel Boyero  
Executive Comitee President

COIRCO was created after the “Programa Unico de Habilitación de Areas de Riego y Distribución de Caudales del río Colorado” (Irrigation Area Enablement and Water Flow Rate Distribution Program for the Colorado River)  was underwritten by the five riverside provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Mendoza, Neuquén, Río Negro and the federal government of Argentina on October 26, 1976.

The Water Management program and COIRCO’s bylaws were later validated by provincial legislation and ratified by federal government law.

The “Acuerdo del Colorado” is unique in its kind, making the Colorado Basin the first in Argentina to have water quotas established and agreed upon for each province at such an early stage of basin development.

Years later the provinces (1988, 1992 and 1997) extended COIRCO’s faculties to include environment protection, competence to establish technical regulations for riverbank line definition, and with project supervision, construction, operational and maintenance procedures approval for all waterworks (diversion, regulation, hidroelctricity) in the Colorado river basin to assure that they conform to the Program.

The Colorado river supplies water for human consumption to all riverside cities, towns and agriculture areas and to many cities of the province of La Pampa through “Rio Colorado Aqueduct” . Water is also delivered for mining, petroleum, and industrial activities that are undertaken in the basin.

COIRCO has its operational center in Bahía Blanca, from where it monitors and administers basin operation in its concerns of water quantity and quality for each jurisdiction.

I would like to invite you to navigate through our new web site in the hope that you will be able to find more information about COIRCO, water quality and river statistics, and documentation that will help you know us better through the activities we undertake in the Colorado watershed.

Unfortunately, most of the site and documentation is in Spanish, if you need assistance in English please don’t hesitate to contact us by email (coirco@coirco.gov.ar).

Come visit the Colorado river of Argentina!