The residents of the Benito Juárez mayor's office have not known what was contained in the gasoline-smelling water that came out of their pipes last Holy Saturday. The capital authorities' solutions have been the closure of a well in the neighboring Álvaro Obregón mayor's office and the preventive closure of two nearby chemical companies.
Although the Mexico City Water System (Sacmex) concluded after an inspection that neighbors can consume water “of good quality, suitable for human use and consumption, in accordance with the provisions of NOM-127-SSA1-2021”, neighbors demand an official opinion from this agency on the components that recorded the samples.
The most recent indication is that they “purge the pipes” by letting the water run for 15 minutes, but the measure does not convince those affected.
“An effective solution for me, my neighbors and all the affected areas would be for them to say exactly what I had (the water) and based on that diagnosis, measures can be taken,” said Ernesto Morales, an affected resident of the Benito Juárez mayor's office.
On April 18, Sacmex announced that it filed a complaint with the capital's Public Prosecutor's Office to carry out an investigation involving an official environmental expert to determine the conditions of the water extracted from the closed Alfonso XIII well.
Independently, during the radio program AguAcero, which is broadcast on the radio of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM), researcher Judith Cardoso explained that tests were carried out that found a slight increase in PH, although this was within the values allowed by the standard.
Causa Natura Media contacted researcher Cardoso for more information about the results, but she said she had no more information than that provided on UAM radio.
Water quality control personnel under review for contaminated water. Photo: Sacmex.
The problem of contaminated water in Mexico City is not recent. In 2022, researcher Cardoso spoke about the presence of heavy metals in the water of the Iztapalapa mayor's office, during the University Perspectives Seminar: Water, Science and Technology, organized by the UAM and the University of Guanajuato that year.
“The water that reaches the homes of the Iztapalapa mayor's office is of poor quality due to the presence of heavy metals in the extraction wells, leading its population to consume bottled water whose drinkability is not guaranteed either ,” said the UAM academic.
“One of the problems is that of the 2,540 purifiers in Mexico City, 1,110 are located in this area (Iztapalapa) —not counting the “pirates” —and the water has a high content of arsenic, chromium, lead, selenium, as well as coliform bacteria, so these establishments do not comply with the standard,” he acknowledged.
The problem of contaminated water can be caused by factors ranging from hydrocarbons to waste, both in surface water and groundwater.
Previously, the National Water Quality Measurement Network (Renameca) noted that of the 4,202 sites monitored by the National Water Commission across the country, only 41% met all the indicators that guarantee unaffected quality.
However, in the Benito Juárez mayor's office, what is worrying for its residents is that even after a month there is no certainty about the polluting components and if they would have an impact on health.
“The most important thing (of the problem) is that no one is telling us how that contaminant came in and what it is,” added Ernesto Morales, who received Sacmex to take water samples from his home, but to date he has no information on the results.
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