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WATER POLITICS

Via OOSKA News, an article on Mexico’s water crisis:

Mexico could face a crisis due to drought and lack of water supply in the next few months, a Mexican legislator warned last week.

Kamel Athié Flores, president of the Potable Water and Sanitation Committee for Mexico’s Congress of the Union (Mexico’s legislative branch), said the situation is already critical and being made worse with the lack of rain in almost all pats of the country, with the majority of dams in the country below 50 percent capacity.

He urged representatives of the National Water Commission (Conagua) to develop an agenda to prevent crisis, involving federal, state and municipal governments.

He said Conagua Head David Korenfeld Federman had agreed to meet with the Potable Water and Sanitation Committee to conduct a review of the sector.

“It is urgent that the Law of Potable water and Sanitation is analyzed and approved before April 30th of this year, since there are increasingly complex projects to provide the supply of potable water to hundreds of thousands of rural communities which are confronting severe drought in all states,” the legislator said.

He cited Conagua’s Coordinator of Basin Councils, Óscar Pimentel González, who also warned of severe drought throughout the country in the near future. He said Conagua was working on preventative and mitigating measures.

Athié also quoted Pimentel as saying that in some states, lack of water has created social conflict.

All of the members of the Potable Water and Sanitation Committee agreed that Conagua must reactivate water concessions in rural areas of the country, which are suffering the most from the lack of water.

Felipe Arreguín Cortés, Conagua’s Deputy General Technical Director, said rain in the past months has been below normal levels, and the 170 most important dams in the country are currently at 56 percent capacity on average. This is 14 percent less than the historical average for the current month.

Rainfall over the next few months is expected to be 30 percent lower than the average.

Conagua is implementing a national policy that includes permanent monitoring of areas affected by drought and plans for early action to foresee and prevent problems to protect the population, as part of the National Program against Drought (Pronacose), he said.

While climate conditions vary around the country, the rainy season usually begins at the end of spring in Mexico.