I accepted an invitation for a tag-along trip to the northern states. My engineer friends
were going to a symposium in Hermosillo on the water crisis in Mexico.
On my last trip to Mexico City, I observed some tilting buildings. They are beginning to
sink into the ground. The water is gone, and the clay sheets on which much of the city is built are compressing and cracking. To bring water to the people now, hopes are pinned on
rainwater catchment systems. This is great when it rains. It will quench thirst and provide
for showers, but it won’t refill aquifers and lift up structures. Some people wonder how
much longer the oldest city in the Americas will last.
My engineer friends tell me that there has never been more than 58% of the population of
Mexico, which has enjoyed daily access to potable water, that eleven million people lack sanitation services, and no more than 14% of the population receives water on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis.
Areas of the country are running out of H2O, and the folks who still have some don’t want to know. There seems to be a worldwide epidemic of people who choose to live in abject ignorance or willful denial of uncomfortable truths.
People whose survival depends on pandering to tourists can’t afford these truths. They know that without water in swimming pools, the ‘snowbirds’ won’t come. I hear arguments like “that’s other states, it’s not here, we’ve got plenty of water, there’s just management issues.” The Brits have a saying for this level of selfishness, ‘I’m all right, Jack.’
There’s no living in denial up north. Some cities have no water. Not getting low, or ‘might run out soon,’ but none. The taps are dry; not little hamlets somewhere out in the ‘boonies’ but major cities like Hermosillo and Monterrey.
A few months back, President Obrador answered a reporter’s question regarding a proposed Tesla factory in Monterrey. “Yes, we issued some permits to Mr. Musk, but we did not guarantee that he would have water.”
And the President had a few things to say when asked about a debt to the U.S. “I don’t
deny that we are five years behind regarding an agreement on the release of water dammed on the Rio Grande, but I would like to have a talk with Mr. Biden. The water
treaty of 1944 committed the US to deliver no less than 1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico annually from the Colorado River. Less than 10% of that water has ever made it to Mexico.”
It seems there are issues on the border besides immigration.
I couldn’t get into stage two of the symposium without some form of required clearance.
The discussions were on schemes to transfer 35 million cubic meters of water from the
Yaqui River and American engineers are in want of access to the Sea of Cortez for more
desalination plants. There are estimates that in thirty years, the Ogallala Aquifer that
supplies water to people from North Dakota to Texas, will no longer support irrigated crop
production.
The US is racing toward a water crisis of its own. My friends called these Ave Maria plans. In American football, it would be a Hail Mary pass; a long shot at best, a temporary fix.
There is a lot of anger and unrest in this town. Beer brewing and soda bottling companies
are getting some of the water they need, while the general population has nothing at the
faucets…there was a significant presence of security…not surprised and only a little
disappointed. Not attending the entire event allowed me time to walk around the city of Hermosillo.
In some areas, lines of people extended for two or three city blocks. The locals were queuing up at water delivery sites, waiting for tanker trucks or ‘pipas.’ They had empty plastic jugs and pails in wheelbarrows, grocery carts, strapped to skateboards, hanging from bicycle racks, or, in some cases, just pushing them along with their feet.
One lady was trying to manage two five-gallon jugs that were laced together with a thin nylon rope, keep her two boys from fighting, and stop her baby from crying. The kid needed a diaper change, so I offered to keep her place in line and watch the boys while
she went behind a kiosk to take care of business. The boys were shocked to obedience by the sudden presence of a grey-haired old gringo. I’m sure they were wondering how I got
there and where I was going as they later watched me walk away and disappear around
the corner.
It was Emiliano Zapata’s grandson, water scientist Jorge Zapata Gonzalez, who said, “The
final revolution will not be for money or material goods, it will be for water, and I think it
will be worldwide.”
