Photo: Unsplash

By KELIN DILLON

After seven days of work by the Water System of Mexico City (Sacmex) to discover the origin of reported waste flooding in residences across Mexico City’s Coyoacán municipality, the source of the water breach still has yet to be determined, adding further supply issues to the Mexican capital metropolitan area’s enduring drought issue, in which  dams remain below 50 percent capacity.

According to the National Water Information System (Sina), 12 out of 13 of the Valley of Mexico’s dams are below half-filled, with only Naucalpan’s Madín dam functioning at full capacity. This has reduced the water supply to many parts of the greater Mexico City area, including putting an additional stress on the cultivation of the region’s potatoes and corn crop.

Agricultural experts, like Livestock Union President Javier Escamilla, have said that many Mexican farmers moved away from planting produce throughout the pandemic due to the low water supply, instead choosing to plant flowers, which need less hydration to grow.

Potato cultivation has been reduced by 30 percent in the Mexico City region, said Escamilla, while the price of the product has been driven up from 8 pesos to 38 due to low supply and high demand.

Livestock has been affected by the drought too, as starving cows search for clean drinking water but instead encounter dirty and polluted water sources, limiting the quality and quantity of livestock available and subsequently raising prices for their products in turn.

In Coyoacán, where waste water has been reportedly flooding households for three months, the evidence of the drought’s effects is clear.

“This problem is not that easy to solve. This is a problem that needs instrumentation and so on .It’s not a common leak,” said Coyoacán Mayor Giovani Gutiérrez.

As the Coyoacán authorities continue to attempt to find the source of the muncipality’s water problem, it remains to be seen how the Mexico City metropolitan area at large will handle the region’s drought.