Surfside Asada

Tourism Service in Surfside, Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Surfside is a residential neighborhood in Playa Potrero, Santa Cruz, Guanacaste, and its drinking water comes from a community aqueduct rather than a distant city plant. ASADA Surfside is the operator: a nonprofit association that administers sewers and aqueducts under a delegation from the Costa Rican Institute of Aqueduct and Sewer (AyA) and Associations Law 218. The Surfside aqueduct was built in 1974 to supply this community and officially became an ASADA in November 2010.

The association’s work is access to drinking water and sanitation, with an emphasis on public health, the sustainability of the water resource, and the neighborhood’s ability to keep growing within the limits of the pipes and tanks it actually has. If you rent, own, or hope to build in Surfside, this is the utility that turns the tap on, bills the meter, and currently holds the line on new hydric paperwork.

Drinking water for Surfside and Playa Potrero

Potrero’s household water is supplied by Surfside Asada and is drinkable from the tap. Refill bottles at the house instead of buying case after case, which is easier on both the budget and the beach. In more remote parts of the country some visitors still default to bottled water; here the local system is the one in the pipes.

A small grocery, Merkdo, sits on Surfside’s main strip. Super Massai in Playa Flamingo is a few minutes’ drive for a larger shop. Fruit and vegetable stands in Villa Real and Potrero, plus Saturday morning produce toward Tamarindo, round out a weekly circuit if you are cooking at home. None of that changes the utility itself, but it does mean a Surfside stay can run on tap water and nearby food without a trip into Santa Cruz town.

Bills, shutoffs, meters, and reconnection

Non-payment shutoffs are scheduled for the 17th of each month, skipping Fridays, holidays, the day before a holiday, and weekends. Owners and long-stay guests who pay locally should treat mid-month as the date that matters, not a leftover due date on someone else’s bill.

Reconnection after a shutoff costs ₡10,220 including VAT. A meter costs ₡138,798 including VAT. Bring account information and plan to handle the payment in colones. The contact line is WhatsApp at +506 8602 6019.

Surfside Property Owners Association dues have been collected at the ASADA office through Marta around 12:00 and 16:00, with separate POA email contacts. That window is useful if you already have POA business; it is not a substitute for messaging the ASADA before you need a reconnection or a new meter.

Water letters and the 500,000-liter tank

On 19 January 2022, AyA’s Regional Office of Communal Aqueducts for the Chorotega Region issued letter GSD-UEN-GAR-2022-00202. From that date, Surfside’s ASADA has not issued water letters or hydric-capacity letters. The aqueduct lacks the technical and legal feasibility, under the Services Provision Regulation, to support maximum development until a storage tank of 500,000 liters is constructed or installed.

That pause is the difference between a connected house and a new project. Existing service continues; new proof of hydric capacity does not. Flamingo and other parts of Potrero have kept expanding while Surfside’s letters are frozen. Anyone buying a vacant lot, adding bedrooms, or filing a construction permit should put this constraint in the first conversation with a lawyer and the municipality, and should message the ASADA about the tank rather than relying on an old letter in a seller’s folder.

The office on Avenida Seis

The office is at The Orchard on Avenida Seis: from La Perla Bar, 500 meters east and 200 meters south, in Surfside, Potrero, Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. La Perla is the landmark on the main approach; the last stretch is residential. Hours are not listed, so a WhatsApp message before you go is the reliable step, especially around the 17th or on a Friday when shutoffs are already deferred.

Cash for a meter or reconnection is easier if you change money first in Playa Flamingo. Banco de Costa Rica there keeps weekday hours from 9:00 to 16:00; Banco Nacional from 8:30 to 15:45. Take a passport for a teller exchange. ATMs can dispense dollars or colones, but a reconnection is a colones errand.

Living with a community aqueduct

An ASADA is a neighborhood association operating under AyA, not a private tanker and not a resort cistern. When you compare Surfside with Flamingo, Brasilito, or Tamarindo, the decision is about capacity and paperwork as much as about the beach. See whether the property is already connected and whose name is on the account. Find out whether the last bill was paid in time to miss a 17th shutoff. If your plan needs a water letter, treat the tank requirement as current, not historical.

Sanitation sits in the same mandate as drinking water. Lot-level septic or sewer details still belong in a purchase inspection; the ASADA’s role is the community system, not a guarantee about every tank on every lot. Beach access, drainage after heavy rain, and municipal recycling are the other files that sit beside water in this grid. ASADA Surfside has worked with Abriendo Mentes and local volunteers on Potrero beach cleanups, which is the civic side of the same organization that runs the aqueduct.

Prepare a short packet before you go in: account name, meter number if you have it, colones for reconnection or a new meter, and a phone with WhatsApp. If you are closing on a house, add the hydric-letter question to the same morning as the bank run so you are not crossing to Flamingo twice.

A Surfside day that includes the utility

Start with tap water at the house and a walk to Potrero Bay through the neighborhood. If you need the ASADA, message in the morning and fold the office into a Flamingo bank run. Groceries can wait for Merkdo or Super Massai. Midday and evening land easily at places already on the Potrero circuit—the Shack off the main road in Surfside, Bahía del Sol and the Sailing Center on the beach, Coco Loco at sunset—then back into the residential streets before dark.

If the trip is a property hunt, drive the La Perla to Avenida Seis approach so the office is not a surprise, and keep the hydric-letter pause at the center of every offer. If the trip is only a beach week, refill bottles, make sure any house account will not hit the 17th unpaid, and leave the storage-tank file to the owner. The aqueduct that has served Surfside since 1974 still delivers drinking water. New growth waits on half a million liters of storage. Plan the stay, the purchase, or the remodel with both of those facts in view.

Location

Phone: +506 8602 6019