Stagnant policies, unreliable methods highlight Mexico City water issues

“It's a pre-Hispanic town. We have our own customs and traditions," Ramírez Almazán said. "When they came in to build the stadium, they told us that we no longer exist."

Ramírez held up a map from 1817. According to that map, where he was standing used to be the shores of Lake Texcoco. As for this town, it was founded as Coyohuacán. It was independent from Mexico City throughout the colonial period and until urbanization in the 1950s. 

"The main thing we are fighting for is water,” Ramírez Almazán said. “They want to use our water for the profit of their business, but we just want our water to live."

In 2012, lawmakers amended Article Four of the Mexican constitution to guarantee the "human right to water." Congress was then given one year to replace the National Water Law with a new General Water Law, intended to clarify how the Mexican government would guarantee this right. 

That time limit expired. More than a decade later, Mexico has made little progress in guaranteeing water rights to citizens.

Since 2012, 14 initiatives have sought to clarify the amendment. All have either expired, been discarded or are still awaiting debate, leaving “the human right to water” as a vague promise without much legal authority. 

Just two percent of water owners lay claim to 70% of Mexico’s allocated water, while 42 million Mexicans — around a third of the country — face water insecurity. Meanwhile, water resources have been polluted or over-allocated, according to Agua Para Tod@s. 

In 2020, the group spearheaded an initiative of their own, aimed at equitably sharing water distribution. Among its goals are ending hoarding by private companies, democratizing water decisions and creating new regulating agencies tasked with safeguarding water as a common good. 

Four years later, the initiative was never voted on. It’s currently stalled in Congress. "Companies are hoarding water while residents don't have any,” said Ovando Ramírez, the Agua Para Tod@s coordinator. “There is no group to investigate bad practices. We demand the defense of our water and our territory."

Ovando Ramírez would like to see officials here plan for sustainability — or at the very least, adequately preserve the water infrastructure they already have. “Wells are leaking [and] are not being maintained properly,” he said. “They are building houses without planning for water and are urbanizing in places where they shouldn't.”

Water issues like these aren’t limited to the fringes of Mexico City. Around 40% of city water — 12,500 liters per second — is lost to leaks. Many neighborhoods don't get water from aquifers or wells at all and instead must rely on water trucks.

In the historic Santa María la Ribera neighborhood near downtown, resident Rocío Lucero Valenzuela Cortéz complained she hadn’t had running water since November. “There is no help from anyone,” she said in an interview. 

Without working taps, Valenzuela Cortéz has to get her water from supply trucks instead. 

Relying on the truck is much more expensive and presents its own unique inconveniences. Hoses on the trucks can’t reach the water tank on the building's roof, meaning that only some apartments could get water. Deliveries only come every four or five days. "We have to recycle our water because the amount of water we have isn’t enough,” she said.

Nor is Valenzuela Cortéz the only resident dealing with such difficulties. "Where do I even begin?" Martha Silvia López Guerrero, another Santa Maria la Ribera resident, said in a phone interview. 

The water López Guerrero receives from supply trucks doesn’t last for more than three days. Worse, she pays double for her water: first to the supply truck and again for her water meter, which records the water she already paid the truck for.

"You are never going to win with the government,” she said. “We pay the consequences because they don't care about us.”

A range of issues plague Mexico City’s water infrastructure, from high prices and irregular delivery to haphazard and sometimes corrupt planning practices. Among these many disparate criticisms, a common thread is the belief that the system is failing everyone.

On a recent cloudy night, Aztec Stadium sat empty, awaiting further renovations. Along congested Tlalpan Avenue, rows of taxis and buses stretched into the distance with no end in sight. A sprawling metropolis, Mexico City's edges seem bound only by swelling population numbers and the limits of developers’ ambitions. And so things will likely continue — at least until the water runs out.

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