Icacos Residents March for Water

(Acapulco, NA 14 February) More than 100 angry residents of the Icacos neighborhood of Acapulco marched yesterday, demanding water service from CAPAMA, the hapless local water utility. Service failed several weeks ago, seriously affecting people in the restaurant and food service trades. Since then, some have had an occasional trickle, but most residents have been completely without service. One resident reported to the papers that CAPAMA has not even sent out water tank trucks, which had been their usual response to a failure of service. “Not all of us have the economic ability to be constantly buying bottled water for bathing and flushing the toilet,” he said. The frustration mounts quickly, since there really is nothing that can be done, other than march and complain. The water company seems truly incapable of providing the services desired. The citizens promise to picket and march, maybe even taking over the offices of the utility, until somebody does something about their situation. One thing is clear to them: going through the “normal” process yields zero in the way of results. To add insult to injury, CAPAMA continues to send them water bills.