Americas
Mexico City Has Long Thirsted for Water. The Crisis Is Worsening.
 
In Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, the struggle for water is constant.
Poor planning, urban sprawl and scorching dry weather have strained the water supply.
One key system may soon be unable to provide water.
Containers used to collect water being distributed in Mexico City.
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mr. López Obrador’s protégée who resigned as Mexico City mayor last year to become the leading presidential candidate, has defended her administration’s handling of the water crisis.
Scientists, she said recently, could not have predicted the prolonged drought, and, if elected president, she would present an ambitious plan to fix the issues.
The National Water Commission did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Some areas of Mexico City have long been without sufficient tap water, including Iztapalapa, a working-class community and the capital’s most populous borough with 1.8 million people. Residents rely on municipal water trucks to fill cisterns or water tanks in homes or buildings. If that is not enough, people pay for private trucks or, in extreme cases, illegally tap water lines.
But as water has become scarcer, other areas of the city are facing increased rationing, including reduced flow and getting water during only certain times of the day or on certain days of the week. Water has been rationed to 284 neighborhoods this year, even to more affluent ones, compared with 147 in 2007.
“Boroughs that have never suffered from water problems in their life are going to have to really learn how to take care of it,” said Adriana Gutiérrez, 50, who manages and lives in a 154-unit apartment complex in Iztapalapa that relies on water trucks. Residents treat every drop as precious, using water from showers to clean their homes.
An apartment complex in Iztapalapa that relies on water trucks receiving a delivery.
For 20 years, Dan Ortega Hernández, 50, never had a problem with running water at his barbershop in Mexico City’s Tlalpan borough. But in November, he said he turned on the faucet and nothing came out. Now, when he does get running water under the rationing plan, he fills a 1,100-liter tank and hopes it lasts until the next scheduled day for running water.
That is a more regular supply than at his home elsewhere in Tlalpan. He said municipal water trucks used to come every four days or so but now take longer, sometimes up to a month. Rather than using water at home, he washes the family’s clothes at a laundromat near his shop.
“It’s scary that we’re running out of resources,” he said.
There is no evidence that Mexico’s drought is attributable to climate change. But the effects are made worse by rising temperatures.
Mexico City’s average temperature rose by around 3 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past century, more than double the global average. Exceptionally hot days (above 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit) have doubled in some parts of the city, according to a 2020 study. That could partly be because of climate change, and partly because of the city’s exponential growth, with concrete and asphalt replacing trees and wetlands.
Heat aggravates a water crisis: People need more water and more water evaporates.
María Blandina, 56, saves all the water she can in small containers and buckets.
The latest Water Risk Atlas, published by the World Resources Institute, describes Mexico City as facing “extremely high” water stress, its highest category.
As Mexico prepares to head to the polls to elect a new president, the water problems have been largely overshadowed by other topics, like crime and the economy. Water has, however, been a main focus of the mayoral race.
Water will reach the entire city, regardless of where people live, one candidate said. The leaks that the governing party failed to repair will be fixed, another proclaimed. A master plan will be put in place, a third added, to unearth buried rivers that run through the capital.
“Now everybody is like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to solve the water problem,’” Dr. Perló said. “But I’ve heard this story many times before.”
Some progress has been made. An enormous $2 billion tunnel opened in 2019 to take wastewater from Mexico City to a distant water treatment plant. A program to harvest unutilized rainwater was launched in some poorer neighborhoods. A small section of Lake Texcoco, largely drained to build the city, was restored. More wells and aquifers are being explored.
But several experts said the steps taken so far had not been aggressive enough and others ill directed.
Most of the focus by city and national governments has been on seeking faraway watersheds that supply other Mexican states to quench Mexico City’s thirst. But the majority of the city’s treatment plants do not operate at full capacity. Many let wastewater go untreated, which is then discharged into rivers or lakes, polluting what could be alternative sources of water.
Children helping fill barrels from their neighborhood’s weekly water delivery by truck.
The estimated price tag for addressing the water crisis reaches as high as $13.5 billion, according to the city’s water agency.
The rainy season, which typically runs from roughly June to November, would usually help replenish Mexico City’s water systems. But the capital saw historically low rainfalls during last year’s rainy season.
The Day Zero warning by some experts has been a flashpoint in Mexico City, used to bash the governing party, which includes Mr. López Obrador and Ms. Sheinbaum. But it has also helped train the public’s attention to the deepening problem.
“It creates a feeling of fear, anxiety, worry,” said Fabiola Sosa Rodríguez, a water management and climate policy researcher.
Lizbeth Martínez García, 26, who lives in a hillside community in Iztapalapa where a weekly municipal water truck fills the tanks that supply the four families in her building, said she asked the delivery man about the future.
He told her, she said, that the future meant even less water.
“We’re scared,” she said.
Heat-cracked ground that was once underwater at the reservoir at Valle de Bravo.
James Wagner covers Latin America, including sports, and is based in Mexico City. A Nicaraguan American from the Washington area, he is a native Spanish speaker. More about James Wagner
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. More about Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
Somini Sengupta is the international climate reporter on the Times climate team. More about Somini Sengupta
nytimes.com
Groundwater Use in the United States
usgs.gov
UNCHARTED WATERS
America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
Overuse is draining and damaging aquifers nationwide, a New York Times data investigation revealed.
nytimes.com
My comments:
What a disaster.
Just like the Central Valley in California or the Mid West, Arizona and many other states.
Drawing out more water than what is the recharge rate is a recipe for disaster.
Times up.
Consequences of AGW and less rainfall in many areas of the world.
Eric |
