The Mexican presidential elections to be held on June 2, 2024 have taken water scarcity more seriously. Currently, 75% of the Mexican territory is in some degree of drought, according to the Drought Monitor of the National Water Commission (Conagua).
“It's a topic (water) that is much more present in the discourse than in other elections, I think it's because of the serious crisis we're suffering. It has to do with a serious water management problem that has led us to a global drought,” said Teresa Gutiérrez, director of the Fund for Environmental Communication and Education (FCEA).
Both Gutiérrez and Rafael Espinoza Méndez, water technologist at the Mexican Institute of Water Technology (IMTA), believe that important issues such as transparency, budgeting and social awareness are being left out of the discussion.
Candidates have shown little interest in approaching organizations and research centers that work on problems related to water.
“We have never had candidates who, from our point of view, are so uninterested in what we are doing as a civil society organization that has been dedicated to the subject for 20 years. We don't understand if the candidates are overwhelmed or what's going on, but we feel like there's little dialogue,” Gutierrez said.
Research institutions in the water sector such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), the IMTA, among others, have knowledge that they could contribute to the development of an urban planning scheme. Rafael Espinoza proposes that the candidates convene a large forum where researchers agree and can guide the public policies they are proposing in the campaign.
“There are many alternatives, let's imagine all the people who do research and who have developed technologies in a work package to really give these candidates guidance, but also to the Legislative Branch itself and to the deputies who don't know the subject, but don't want to listen to us,” he said.
Blind spots in the proposals
Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate for the presidency of Mexico for the Strength and Heart for Mexico coalition formed by the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), proposes to encourage private investment for rainwater collection and wastewater treatment infrastructure, while the candidate for the Citizen Movement (MC), Jorge Álvarez Máynez, has proposed this type of investment to install desalination plants in the country.
Faced with these proposals, Teresa Gutiérrez points out that it should first be considered how the conditions for the participation of private initiative are going to be created and under what scheme their participation would be.
In the case of desalination plants, he pointed out that, instead of waiting for technological solutions that demand a lot of energy and generate wastewater, we should think of solutions based on nature by protecting the ecosystems that are part of the water cycle, such as rivers.
“I am convinced that the solution can only come from nature-based solutions. They assume that water would come from someone who knows where and they talk about technologies, but they don't talk about the ecosystems that are the origin of water. If we don't take care of that, then there will be no treatment plant, no technology, or desalination plant that can bring the resource,” said Gutiérrez.
From Rafael Espinoza's perspective, proposals, instead of considering private investments, should focus on public investments focused on science, technology and innovation.
“The proposal to desalinate seawater simply involves buying foreign technology and is a very, very high investment instead of them thinking, 'we are going to strengthen research institutions in Mexico so that our scientists can develop our own technology' and instead of buying it, let's be the pioneers in Latin America and then sell our own technology,” Espinoza said.
In addition, Rafael Espinoza is also committed to the simplest solutions that address the underlying problem, such as a major water culture program.
“As long as we don't make the population aware that we must take care of, that we must be more cautious for the sustainable use of our resource, so we can be giving more water to the population and what is going to happen is that we are going to be wasting it, we are going to be polluting it. First we need this process of water culture,” he said.
For her part, Claudia Sheinbaum, presidential candidate of the alliance between Morena, the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM), proposes a National Water Plan based on the revision of the National Water Law “to make it more comprehensive” and the concessions granted, a plan that is perceived as urgent for Gutiérrez but must be accompanied by transparency.
However, a revision of the current law, from Rafael Espinoza's point of view, is insufficient. What is required is that the General Water Law be enacted since 2012 and which would repeal the current National Water Law, where a mechanism could be incorporated to consider the opinion of the IMTA before granting a water concession to have greater control over the exploitation of the resource.
“This General Water Law does contemplate the IMTA with more powers, since it must ensure that it will remain and then be strengthened so that it can fulfill its powers. IMTA researchers believe that a mechanism can be included in the new Law to prevent an indiscriminate concession of water by Conagua. First, the IMTA should do a study of the amount of water in the basin and then technically determine if a concession can or cannot be granted and of what volume. This ensures that the water balance of the hydrological basin does not deteriorate,” Rafael explained.
In this review, it is also necessary to verify the georeferencing of concessions to design public policies and make decisions on the subject.
“The record of concessions shows how water is being managed, with concessions whose georeferencing is outside Mexican territory. And not only is it a mistake in the registry itself, but the concessions are not reviewed. They grant a concession but no one checks that you are actually using them or are not using them, or where that water is going. There is zero tracking. It is an urgent issue so that we are not managing water blindly, but that absolutely all water is metered and concessions are followed up. So there is an impressive lack of transparency,” he said.
This monitoring naturally involves considering strengthening the inspection and surveillance area for which budget and human resources are required, Gutiérrez said.
“The inspection and surveillance area needs to be strengthened, but on the contrary, there is a reduction in the budget in general to the environmental field and specifically that of water is evident. So in discourse they can say and say, but the money allocated to water is getting smaller and smaller to manage an increasingly scarce asset on which any form of life depends and, let alone, economic and social development,” said Gutiérrez.
On the agua.org.mx portal, an FCEA project, a section has been set up where the proposals of presidential candidates regarding the issue of water will be updated so that citizens can be informed throughout the electoral process.
Comentarios (0)