Drought hits Mexican industrial powerhouse

Maria Celia Navarro smiles wistfully as she recalls the now-unthinkable luxury of having a shower in her home before drought hit one of Mexico’s wealthiest cities.

Nestled in the mountains just a few hours’ drive from the US border, Monterrey’s industrial powerhouse offers a standard of living that many Mexicans can only dream of.

Residents in the northern city, whose metropolitan area is home to around five million people, have generally been spared chronic service shortages that plague many of the country’s poorer areas.

But for several weeks, Monterrey has only had running water for a few hours a day due to a heat wave and lack of rain.

In deprived neighborhoods perched on hills, it has been more than 50 days since some residents last saw a drip from their taps.

“I’m desperate for water,” Navarro said.

The 73-year-old, who is in frail health, said she feels “very depressed” when she seeks shelter from the sun in her small, poorly ventilated home in the municipality of Garcia.

Even the city’s older residents say they can’t remember a time when Monterrey’s households had to make do with so little water.

Despite being a modern and thriving city home to transnational corporations, few homes are equipped with water tanks, which are common in other major cities, including the capital, Mexico City.

“They weren’t needed,” said councilman Javier Torres, who oversees the tankers that bring water to Garcia, where entire families run outside with buckets to collect the precious liquid.

Many residents of Monterrey — the capital of the wealthy state of Nuevo Leon — are filling makeshift storage containers in their homes because skyrocketing prices mean they can’t afford a large tank.

A semi-arid climate means authorities have to monitor the levels of several reservoirs that feed the city each summer, when the average temperature hits about 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).

Water in one had shrunk to less than one percent of its capacity by the end of June, while another was at seven percent and a third at 44 percent, according to the national water agency.

Samuel Garcia, the 34-year-old governor of Nuevo Leon, said a pipeline leak was partly to blame, adding that he was “not Tlaloc” – a nod to the Aztec rain god.

Cloud seeding – a technique used elsewhere in Mexico to try to provoke rain by scattering chemicals in the sky – is one of his suggestions for tackling the problem.

According to expert Antonio Hernandez, who closely follows the city’s environmental problems, Monterrey faces an uncertain outlook due to 15 months of low rainfall and poor water resource management.

Farmers and a booming industrial sector dominated by the production of soft drinks, beer, steel and cement have faced few restrictions despite the drought, he said.

Radical measures such as the cessation of commercial activities “seem unthinkable to me at the moment,” Hernandez said.

Last week, after negotiations with federal authorities, companies and farmers agreed to take action to alleviate the shortage.

“Companies have shut down operations a few days a week to conserve water,” Torres said.

“There are companies that have sent us water to supply some parts of the city,” the city council said.

On the outskirts of Monterrey, La Boca Reservoir looks as empty as a dozen restaurants on its recently renovated boardwalk.

A cracked lake bed and boats, left high and dry by the receding water, now greet visitors.

“We barely caught our breath after the pandemic, and then the drought started,” says 26-year-old waiter Adrian Luna, who fears the boat rides and horseback riding will become a distant memory.