Water Supply Complaints Grow More Shrill

(Acapulco, NA 27 November) On the access steps to Condesa Beach, a water main break has been left to waste water for over 10 days. CAPAMA responded to those who reported the broken water line that people would come to make repairs. But those who came just took a look at it and left. Workers who serve tourists on Condesa beach said that the CAPAMA repairmen asked them for $400 pesos, as they had no replacement pipe with which to fix the leak. Not only is the broken water line wasting thousands of liters of water per day, it has made water unavailable to certain parts of the tourist zone around Condesa Beach. The businesses there are fervently asking CAPAMA to solve the problem before the high season comes.

Elsewhere in Acapulco, whole neighborhoods are clamoring for water service. “We can no longer afford tanker trucks,” said residents of Generación 2000 and Tamarindos on the west side of town. They have been without water for three months, ever since the water main entering those communities broke, and CAPAMA has not come to repair it. Even though the water utility has been incapable of providing service to these communities, it has nevertheless kept sending out the water bills, even increasing them by 30%. This has incensed the population. From their own pockets they must pay to have water trucked in. In some neighborhoods the streets are in such poor condition that the tanker trucks have no access, and the population must haul water from springs, much in the way of their ancestors.