No Water in 80 Acapulco Neighborhoods

(Acapulco, JG 29 June) Over 80 neighborhoods in Acapulco have no running water. The local water authority, CAPAMA, spends over $1 million pesos per month for distribution by water trucks, which arrive once or twice a week to let residents fill up buckets and tubs for drinking, bathing and flushing toilets. This translates into 3,600 truckloads per month per truck, and 28 trucks are in operation. Each load costs the utility $300 pesos.

The reasons for water shortages are the same as ever, according to Manuel Santos Navarrete, the recently appointed director of the utility: problems in the water distribution and pumping system, lack of a network that reaches all residences, and water treatment facilities that can only operate at half capacity or less. The director said that CAPAMA’s 28 water trucks serve around 84,000 families per month in the 80 neighborhoods without any other water service.

When asked about the water problem, Acapulco mayor Manuel Añorve Baños, himself a former director of the water utility, explained that water shortages in the outlying suburbs were caused by an equipment failure in the El Cayaco water treatment plant, and that the problem has been corrected, and that service will be restored soon to several zones of the city.

Residents of Garita, on the upslope above the Maxi-tunnel have been without water service for anywhere from 17 days to a month. They have taken to the streets in protest. Last Monday, they blocked the highway between Acapulco and Mexico City for several hours. The city sent a large number of police and military to the place of the blockade. The mayor said they were there for “security reasons.” The demonstrators said it was to intimidate them.