Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Part 2. Water in Mexico City
Claudia Campero Arena
When the Spaniards arrived in Tenochtitlan (today Mexico City) they could not believe their eyes. The city was built on lakes. Starting from an island in the middle, the city extended into the lakes and had canals as roads. The Spaniards progressively desiccated the closed basin draining its water to other rivers. What remains of those lakes makes it difficult to picture what that landscape used to be. Paradoxically, what used to be a city built on water is today a city that suffers problems of water availability. But as it will be argued, these problems do not affect all in the same way.
By the 1950s, due to the high demand for the resource, the rate of extraction exceeded the rate of recharge of the ground waters – the source that amounts for the majority of the water of the city – and water started to be pumped from two other exterior rivers (Lerma and Cutzamala rivers) (CNA, 2000: 74). The overexploitation of the ground waters has caused serious problems to many constructions in the city which are literarily sinking due to the nature of the soil of the desiccated lakes. The lowering of the water table amounts to 1 metre annually (Tortajada, 2003: 125) and over extraction of the groundwater is calculated to be higher than 140 per cent (CNA, 2000:75). Additionally the recharge areas have been substantially reduced owing to the urbanisation of the previous forests.
Mexico City’s sprawl has extended beyond the limits of the Federal District (DF) to the State of Mexico. The Metropolitan Area of Mexico’s Valley (ZMVM) is integrated by the 16 delegaciones of the DF, 58 municipalities of the State of Mexico and one of the state of Hidalgo. The municipalities had 9.7 million inhabitants in 2000 and a population growth rate of 2.41. For this same year the Federal District (DF) had 8.6 million and 0.3 growth rate (SEDUVI, 2001). The built-up area of the city is estimated in 1500 km2, however the metropolitan area comprises 4500 km2 (Ward, 1998). There is no metropolitan authority to carry on policies for the city. As it will be explained further on, for water issues other municipalities with the ZMVM form a hydrological region.
The water provision for the metropolitan area was at the beginning of the 1990s 62 cubic meters per second and for the DF approximately of 35 m3/s. This share of water for the DF has remained the same[1] meaning that to respond to growing demand the solution has been leakage control (Martínez Omaña, 2004). The amount of water lost through leakages in the DF in 1997 was 37%; in 2001 it was of 30% (Libreros Muñoz and Quiñones Castillo, 2004). This is still an expensive inefficiency.
Owing to the nature of Mexico City, being divided into differently organised entities, the DF and the State of Mexico, and for the sake of brevity, some of the following information will only be about the DF. However the fact that a substantial part of the city has sprawled to the State of Mexico and that there are differences in the water service is important and will to some extent be addressed.
Water governance in Mexico City
Considering that governance is the way a society organises its affairs, the way this will be done is related to the perceptions and beliefs prevalent in that society. Water, due to its indispensable character for life, is considered in many societies as a public good, even as ‘sacred’ (Whiteford and Melville, 2002; Shiva, 2002). Not least in the case of Mexico, where the perception of water as a community resource was clearly found in the indigenous Mexicans before the Spanish arrived, in the laws the Spanish brought with them, and was formally established as a public good after the beginning of the twentieth century Revolution and Constitution. Governance systems that perceive water as a public good generally try, at least in principle, to make it available to everybody. Indeed this is the idea of the need to provide universal access to essential services.
Yet in 1992 the legislation was changed. Castro (2003) explains that the process was ‘increasing state control over water resources, while simultaneously transforming the status of water from public to private good, and organizing its governance around market principles’(p.28). The premise was that scarcity problems in Mexico were because water had not been treated as an economic good. The importance of increasing state control was because of the need to regain power over water that was managed by communities so the municipalities would be directly in charge. The municipalities could then involve the private sector in the management of the resource. Since then, private participation in the water sector has increased in several states of the country changing the configuration of the water governance system from one previously dominated by the central government to one where the private sector and the local governments play increasingly an important role. Nevertheless there are important problems in the decentralisation process generating coordination inefficiencies.
In the next paragraphs, the roles of different actors of governance in the water sector in Mexico City will be addressed. Starting by giving a national overview, then the particular case of the Federal District will be introduced. Next the privatisation of water services and some of its consequences in the DF will be briefly tackled. Lastly the role of the organised civil society will be considered.
Public sector
Water management at the federal level
The National Water Commission (CNA) is the federal agency in command of the administration, policy making, custody and allocation of water in Mexico. Created in 1989, this organisation, together with the new law of national waters dictated in 1992, started a new way of management of the resource. It promoted two important things: decentralisation and privatisation (Martínez Omaña, 2004). The CNA is today a deconcentrated organisation of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).
One of the CNA’s most important activities is to supply bulk water to settlements. It is not its responsibility, though, to distribute within the settlements, and in some cases it is the local government that does the extraction of water. For instance, in the DF the water that is extracted from the underground is the responsibility of the local authority, while that brought from external sources is provided by the CNA. The municipalities and the DF are supposed to pay the CNA for the bulk water it provides, but many municipalities are indebted with this federal authority.
Martinez-Lagunes and Rodriguez-Tirado (1998) identify two important problems that this organisation has. Firstly, although one of the reasons for creating the CNA was to concentrate in a single agency water issues and favour co-ordination, this has not been entirely achieved. Secondly, the activities of CNA have created conflicts of interest within. For example, it is at the same time regulator of water quality and responsible for sewage discharge. The aim is to change this giving the CNA a predominantly normative character, yet maintaining technical support for the local authorities (CNA, 2003).
The CNA has organised water management in 13 hydrological regions. This is of considerable importance because it means that instead of managing the resource according to political divisions, it is managed with a logic that aims to be integrated and ecologically sustainable. Also important to sustainability is that finally water is part of the SEMARNAT, not of the Ministry of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources (SARH) as it used to be. Notwithstanding these changes in the management of water, the goal of achieving environmental sustainability is still very far from being met.
The hydrological region Mexico City belongs to is called the Mexico’s Valley Region. It includes the DF, 56 municipalities of the State of Mexico, 39 of Hidalgo and 4 of Tlaxcala. The most important problems of the region identified in the National Hydraulic Programme (CNA, 2000:75) are: a) the overexploitation of underground waters, calculated as representing 140 per cent of the recharge capacity; b) water pollution; c) insufficient water delivery; d) significant inefficiency in irrigation systems and urban uses; e) damages due to flooding; f) competition among users for the resource.
Water management in the DF
In 2003, two previous government agencies were merged into the SACM (Water System of Mexico City). Before this merge the DGCOH (General Direction of Hydraulic Construction) was in charge of supplying water to the DF and constructing and maintaining the primary water network. The CADF (Water Commission of the Federal District) collected tariffs, supervised the job of the private companies and served the users. The second was created as part of the reforms that aimed to decentralise and promote private participation in the sector in 1992.
There are other agencies involved in water issues in the DF. The treasury, as well as the private companies and the SACM, collects bills and concentrates the total revenue from the system. The 16 delegaciones take care of the secondary network, which is the smaller diameter network delivering directly to the users. The SACM supplies bulk water for each delegación to distribute it. This gives the SACM considerable power in deciding where water goes without giving the delegación much room for manoeuvre, which will be addressed latter on.
The delegaciones have several difficulties in fulfilling their obligations. The most significant problems are related to the lack of human capacity, financial and human resources. The lack of materials for repairs of leakages and ageing personnel are two recurrent problems in most delegaciones. Moreover there are several services that are still centralised in the SACM making the delegaciones only intermediaries of paperwork. This demonstrates an incomplete decentralisation process (Delgado, 2004).
Concerning how the service is brought to different areas of the city by the authorities, Ward (1986) explains how the provision of water services in the irregular settlements is ‘open to partisan political influence’ (p. 91). He argues that the agencies designed to procure water to Mexico City have a technical image due to the relative success of providing water to many parts of the city. Yet when it comes to decide what neighbourhoods will be connected to the system and with what frequency they will receive water it becomes more a decision of the hierarchy of politicians, up to the mayor or even the president.
In 1997 the inhabitants of the DF for the first time elected a mayor and a local assembly with legislative powers (ALDF). A left wing party, the PRD, has dominated the political scene since; although the prevailing party nationally for 70 years, the PRI, continues to dominate in the State of Mexico. How this has changed the patronage system is still unclear. But the fact is that several parties try to compete for electorate support and it is not uncommon that they use the promise of better water provision for winning an election.
The ALDF is very aware of the strategic role water management plays in the development of the city. It published a water law in 2003 that specified the roles of the SACM and the delegaciones. Some members of parliament are continuously in touch with the SACM advocating for water services for different neighbourhoods and are commonly heading demonstrations. Currently there is a Special Committee for Integral Water Management in the ALDF working on how to improve the water management in the city with a particular focus on improving participation, financial sustainability, water provision and environmental sustainability (ALDF, 2004).
Private sector
In 1993, four private companies formed through combinations of national corporations and transnational water giants signed ten-year service contracts for the Federal District. Among the water transnationals involved in the city are Générales Des Eaux, Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux (today Suez), Anglian Water and Severn Trend (Martínez Omaña, 2004). A new contract negotiation is currently taking place. According to a water official the changes in conditions will not be significant (Germán Martínez Santoyo, interviewed by the author, 23/07/04).
The four private companies are responsible for users’ registration, the water metering and billing. This is a considerable increase in private participation in the sector but it is not complete privatisation or divestiture. According to Martínez Omaña (2004), the overall performance of the water companies has led to some improvements. Particularly considering efficiency in management, metering and billing, the private corporations have improved the situation in the DF.
Nevertheless according to Castro (2003) the public reaction to this was negative: ‘the response of water users took largely the form of civil disobedience, such as the non payment of water bills in protest for the steep increases in the tariff, but also included the destruction of water meters and other actions to sabotage the functioning of the new system’ (p.30). In fact, the employees of these four private companies wear uniforms and carry personal identifications using the SACM’s name instead of that of their own company.
Even those most in favour of private participation have seen the problems this has brought in the country. A WB document recognises: ‘The relative failure of PSP in Mexico has been exacerbated by a combination factors, including the absence of a clear regulatory framework for private participation, and design and procurement flaws resulting from ad hoc processes carried out by unprepared municipalities’ (Kemper and Alvarado, 2000). In addition the OECD emphasised this problem: ‘the regulatory environment proved insufficient, especially because the number of public organisations in the water sector led to severe co-ordination problems’ (OECD, 2003:126). Possibly this problem could be solved with the merge of the two previous government agencies into the SACM as mentioned earlier.
Yet private sector participation is most probably to continue and increase to some extent in the DF. While the number of employees of the public agencies – particularly with the creation of the SAMC – continues to decrease, the challenge of coordination among different government levels in order to be more capable of supervising the private companies remains. As long as this is not achieved, those who have currently the worst water services or no service at all will suffer most.
Organised civil society
Although the water law explicitly states that the CNA is to promote and favour users’ participation including decision-making capacities (LAN, 2004), the achievements of the organisations it created for this purpose, the Basin Councils, are unsatisfactory. The aim of these councils is to contribute to the integrated management of water, promoting sustainability and local participation. Yet the widespread belief in the academic sector and the local government is that they fail to achieve the goal of participation (interviewed by the author: Germán Martínez Santoyo, 23/07/04, Martha Delgado, 3/08/04).
Even the CNA admits the structure does not help to enhance participation (CNA, 2003). Allowing only one representative for agricultural water users and one for urban users as representatives of entire basins is clearly not enough for participation claims to be believed. Moreover the competences of the Basin Councils are narrow because they only authorise and supervise the programmes and plans but do not take part in many other important issues, for example tariff approvals or pollution charges (CNA, 2003).
For Martha Delgado, the member of local parliament driving water reforms in the DF, the Basin Councils are the spaces where users just sort out who is going to obtain what amount of water. They fail to promote wider participation and do not address issues of conservation. Additionally the CNA is inexperienced in dealing with social groups, particularly because its staff is dominated by technical specialists (interview with the author, 3/08/04).
Sadly, according to her, environmental NGOs in Mexico are not particularly concerned about water issues. These organisations, she argues, are not organised territorially but in relation to topics and they have not been generating debate in this area. Then the discussions around water issues become focused in how water should be distributed, disregarding how it should be managed for conservation and eventually making distribution easier.
Nevertheless at a community level, people do organise to contest the authority around service delivery issues. This has been a constant feature in the urbanisation process of the city. Recently, one of the most significant achievements of continuous protesting with the backing of local assembly members was by the inhabitants of the Sierra de Santa Catarina in Iztapalapa. Thanks to their ability to organise, they managed to get exemption of the payment of massive debts to the CADF. They made their point because the low quality water service they received could not justify the charges.
The unsuitability of the existing ‘spaces for participation’ is manifested in the frequency of water related conflicts in the metropolitan area. Two different studies show the considerable unrest concerning water issues in the metropolis. Castro (2004) analysed water related conflicts (from peaceful petitions to violent actions) through press reports from 1985 to 1992. His study shows the concentration of the conflicts in the DF in three delegaciones, but the majority of events were in some municipalities in the State of Mexico. This showed that lack of water is only suffered in some areas of the city. Central to his argument is the fact that water conflicts arise because of socio-political problems, not because of scarcity of the resource. In this sense, the current governance system allows management decisions to favour certain areas of the city over others generating socially unjust results.
The second study is that of Sainz Santamaría and Becerra Pérez (2003). They studied water conflicts at the national level and found that half of them were in Mexico City. They also found that the main way citizens manifested their demands was through demonstrations. This shows how urgent changes in the governance system are in order to solve these conflicts in more satisfactory and lasting ways.
All the previous discussion evidences that there are problems in the way the public, private and social sectors operate concerning water governance in Mexico City. The end result is that a considerable portion of the population either lacks water services or has a poor service. In the next section of this work, the discussion will be centred in which problems principally affect the residential water users in the city.
Social injustice in water issues in Mexico City
As mentioned in the theoretical framework, I consider that the two key dimensions of social justice are distribution and participation. In the previous section I have already dealt with the problems in the water governance system concerning the lack of proper channels for users’ participation to take part in the decisions concerning the management of the resource. This section will be more concentrated in the problems of distribution of water, the resulting social injustices and the conflicts generated by them. The distribution problems will be identified related with water availability and the way it is available, its quality, affordability and differences in price. Also, the important considerations of uneven spatial distribution and the differences among water uses – residential and non-residential (industry, commerce and services) – will be kept in mind.
Distribution and availability
The water available for the DF is 35m3/s; and, as the current general director of the SACM expressed in an interview, no more will be transported to the city (Ramirez Cuevas, 2002). Although there is a proposal for bringing water from Temascaltepec, the financial, political and environmental costs would be substantial. A much wiser choice is to work on demand management, efficiency, conservation and distribution.
Indeed the fact that the DF already has this water supply presents controversy and conflict with the State of Mexico that now claims the water from the Lerma and Cutzamala as theirs. Furthermore the untreated drainage of the DF generates serious problems to the state of Hidalgo where this highly polluted water is used for irrigation of crops consumed by the inhabitants of the city.
Thus the 35m3/s of water has to be somehow distributed among more than 8.6 million people that live in the DF. In 2000 only in the DF - which has been traditionally the place in Mexico that enjoys the best services – there were more than 400,000 dwellings without water connection inside their home (INEGI, 2000). This represents 22% of the dwellings in the capital. However a more common number given by the authorities is that 97% of the population has a water connection in the plot of their home. The mismatch of the data is because 19% of the dwellings have a water connection inside the plot where they live but not inside their home. Most probably this would often be a shared faucet with other dwellings in the plot. Although this is clearly a better access to water than having to walk considerable distances to fetch water outside the plot, it is still not an optimum service.
One of the most notorious differences in availability in the city is that between the east and west. Water availability in the west is more than enough, while in the east this is not so. The west is where the water from the external sources, the Lerma and Cutzamala, get into Mexico City (Tortajada, 2003). Therefore the pressures in this area are very high and water appears abundant (Libreros Muñoz and Quiñones Castillo, 2004). Not surprisingly the wealthiest neighbourhoods are located in the west while the poorer ones in the east (Ward, 1998). The location of lower income groups in the east of the city was because the upper and middle classes took over the west. The east and north are the areas where the lakes of the basin used to be (De Garay, 1856). Thus the problems of flooding were – and in some places still are – very frequent and made the areas less desirable.
Water distribution among the delegaciones is highly unequal and generates conflict especially during the dry season, when even authorities enter into conflict for the resource. For instance, the delegación Tláhuac limits with Iztapalapa. Both have an important number of users supplied through the tandeo[2] system. During the dry season these users are the first to suffer scarcity and the struggle for the resource is not only the demand from the users to their authorities but also among authorities themselves to satisfy their users’ claims. There are no institutional channels currently in place for these conflicts to be resolved.
In this difficult context where many residential users face the reality of having to invest considerable energy and time in getting water, 80% of the industries in the basin directly extract the water they need from wells. Many of these industries consume enormous amounts of the resource in their production processes. Here the debate of water as a public good or as an economic commodity becomes relevant. In my opinion it would be possible to defend water used for survival and hygiene as a public good and make it available to everybody, whereas water as an input for production is an economic commodity that should be priced accordingly (see section on ‘Affordability and price differences’). Yet this distinction does not necessarily brings us closer to a solution for distribution because if water is scarce then one or both of the uses will be limited in their consumption. This limitation would either impact the quality of life of the population having less water than they need or impact economic activities – which could eventually affect the availability of jobs and the wages paid, thus ultimately affecting people’s life quality. Certainly the residential use is the priority in social justice terms but it is a complex problem.
Distribution and quality
However the problems with water delivery are not only about having a water connection and getting it in a sufficient amount but also with good quality. For decades, citizens have been aware of the need to boil tap water to make it drinkable. But increasingly the problem of the quality in city water is not only about the presence of bacteria but of salinity, chloride ions, iron, manganese, ammonium and faecal coliforms (Ezcurra et al, 1999).
The greater problems of water quality are again found in the east, north and rural south of the city coinciding with the areas where the lower income groups live. Moreover there are constant claims that the water provided through the truck services has visible organisms and green or brown colour (Olayo Guadarrama, 2002). This situation is worse when the unavailability of the service forces people to stock water in inadequate containers that provoke further contamination of the water.
Affordability and price differences
Commonly water utilities consider two or three water uses and classify them as: residential water use and non-residential water use (industrial and/or commercial). This is the case in Mexico City. According to the use given to the resource, water tariffs are charged differently. This is only sensible because water used for survival and hygiene cannot be perceived as equivalent to water used as an input to a product. Thus there is a cross-subsidy between the non-residential and the residential use.
Both water usage tariffs are structured as inverted block rates. In this way, users consuming more water will be paying more per cubic meter than those using less water. The aim of tariffs set in this way is to promote conservation. Nevertheless there are problems in how the residential tariffs are set.
Residential users pay a subsidised tariff even if their consumption is excessive. In 2003, considering the average cost to the DF for each cubic metre it provided, the cost of operation would be covered only until a household consumed 90 m3 per month. Considering that the average household in the DF is 4.2 persons, basic water consumption according to Gleick would be 6.3 m3 per month. Even what the CADF regards as normal water consumption, 20 m3 per month (Germán Martínez Santoyo, interview with the author, 23/07/04), evidences a subsidy for a very high consumption. In these circumstances the goal of promoting conservation through tariffs may not be met, particularly for more affluent households for whom this water charge is insignificant.
Yet the solution of just restructuring the rates for families consuming more than 20m3 per month to pay at least the operation costs would have other problems. Often, lower income families tend to form larger households (particularly as a strategy to share expenditure among the extended family), consequently consuming more water than smaller households that might be better off. Thus, unless other measures are taken to target these lower-income larger households, there would be a socially unjust charging because it would be unfavourable for the most disadvantaged.
However with the current charges, when considering the water delivered by the utility, it is difficult to say that water is unaffordable. In the case of having only the minimum salary, normal water consumption would represent 4% of the income. Taking into account that in a general calculation spending 5% of an income in water is regarded as affordable (Winpenny, 2003); water in the city appears to be affordable. Nevertheless the problem arises when the family does not have a connection or the tandeo system does not satisfy their water requirements. It is here when water needs to be obtained through other systems that the issue of affordability becomes a concern, when the price paid for the resource is unjust and water becomes an expensive commodity for the poor.
Getting water through truck services is certainly much more expensive than receiving it through a water connection. The delegaciones provide water trucks for those without a water connection, and, when there is scarcity, for those neighbourhoods, generally in the east of the city, with connections that do not receive water (Ramirez Cuevas, 2002). This service is supposed to be free if the neighbourhood is regular, but in practice corruption of the drivers is common, demanding ‘tips’ for their service (Olayo Guadarrama, 2002). In contrast with the cost it represents to pay water from the utility, the cost paid for water from trucks can be 10 times as much, becoming unaffordable.
Getting water trucks to fill the containers at home is not an easy task and it is generally done by women. In times of scarcity, women can spend up to 10 hours of the day to obtain the water they need for 2 days (Ramirez Cuevas, 2002). This is a work load that restrains their ability to get engaged in income earning activities. It is not surprising that when it comes to demonstrations and other contentions to the authorities women dominate the scene (Delgado, 2004).
Another problem of affordability arises with connection charges. A water connection represents nearly two times a minimum month salary. There are no financing mechanisms for this payment. Adding to this is the very tedious and difficult procedure a user needs to follow to get a connection which might even take two years. In these circumstances no wonder there is a high percentage of illegal connections. These are estimated to be in the delegación Cuauhtemoc of 40 per cent (Delgado, 2004)!
In support of the argument set forward in the previous section of this work about the role of conflict in achieving a more socially just distribution and management of water, let us consider the example of Iztapalapa. Iztapalapa is the most populated delegación in the DF. It is located in the east of the city, having the availability problems of the area mentioned earlier. This delegación has traditionally been a combative one, promoting collective action in demonstrations and street blockages. Today many of the projects for improving the water provision in the city are concentrated in this area. Among the projects are the reopening of wells and purifying plants that aim to improve the water availability in Iztapalapa.
Yet much remains to be done to approach a more socially just distribution and management of water in Mexico City. The social injustice of the difference in the water service received by users in the DF is manifested in multiple ways. In the end it is generally neighbourhoods in the east delegaciones that receive the worst water quality, the least reliability of the service and pay the highest prices, with the women within these households bearing the heaviest burden. This in turn generates conflicts that have now challenged the governance system to the extent that the local parliament is working on various reforms to improve the current laws in water and the water service.
[1] Proposals concerning how water from other sources could be transferred to the city do exist but due to the high political, ecological, social and financial costs they would represent, they have not been carried out so far.
[2] Tandeo refers to water serviced in an inconstant manner. In some neighbourhoods that have water connections, water is only available at certain times of certain days to overcome the problem that the offer is less than the demand. This worsens during drought periods.(Libreros Munioz and Quiniones Castillo, 2004)
When the Spaniards arrived in Tenochtitlan (today Mexico City) they could not believe their eyes. The city was built on lakes. Starting from an island in the middle, the city extended into the lakes and had canals as roads. The Spaniards progressively desiccated the closed basin draining its water to other rivers. What remains of those lakes makes it difficult to picture what that landscape used to be. Paradoxically, what used to be a city built on water is today a city that suffers problems of water availability. But as it will be argued, these problems do not affect all in the same way.
By the 1950s, due to the high demand for the resource, the rate of extraction exceeded the rate of recharge of the ground waters – the source that amounts for the majority of the water of the city – and water started to be pumped from two other exterior rivers (Lerma and Cutzamala rivers) (CNA, 2000: 74). The overexploitation of the ground waters has caused serious problems to many constructions in the city which are literarily sinking due to the nature of the soil of the desiccated lakes. The lowering of the water table amounts to 1 metre annually (Tortajada, 2003: 125) and over extraction of the groundwater is calculated to be higher than 140 per cent (CNA, 2000:75). Additionally the recharge areas have been substantially reduced owing to the urbanisation of the previous forests.
Mexico City’s sprawl has extended beyond the limits of the Federal District (DF) to the State of Mexico. The Metropolitan Area of Mexico’s Valley (ZMVM) is integrated by the 16 delegaciones of the DF, 58 municipalities of the State of Mexico and one of the state of Hidalgo. The municipalities had 9.7 million inhabitants in 2000 and a population growth rate of 2.41. For this same year the Federal District (DF) had 8.6 million and 0.3 growth rate (SEDUVI, 2001). The built-up area of the city is estimated in 1500 km2, however the metropolitan area comprises 4500 km2 (Ward, 1998). There is no metropolitan authority to carry on policies for the city. As it will be explained further on, for water issues other municipalities with the ZMVM form a hydrological region.
The water provision for the metropolitan area was at the beginning of the 1990s 62 cubic meters per second and for the DF approximately of 35 m3/s. This share of water for the DF has remained the same[1] meaning that to respond to growing demand the solution has been leakage control (Martínez Omaña, 2004). The amount of water lost through leakages in the DF in 1997 was 37%; in 2001 it was of 30% (Libreros Muñoz and Quiñones Castillo, 2004). This is still an expensive inefficiency.
Owing to the nature of Mexico City, being divided into differently organised entities, the DF and the State of Mexico, and for the sake of brevity, some of the following information will only be about the DF. However the fact that a substantial part of the city has sprawled to the State of Mexico and that there are differences in the water service is important and will to some extent be addressed.
Water governance in Mexico City
Considering that governance is the way a society organises its affairs, the way this will be done is related to the perceptions and beliefs prevalent in that society. Water, due to its indispensable character for life, is considered in many societies as a public good, even as ‘sacred’ (Whiteford and Melville, 2002; Shiva, 2002). Not least in the case of Mexico, where the perception of water as a community resource was clearly found in the indigenous Mexicans before the Spanish arrived, in the laws the Spanish brought with them, and was formally established as a public good after the beginning of the twentieth century Revolution and Constitution. Governance systems that perceive water as a public good generally try, at least in principle, to make it available to everybody. Indeed this is the idea of the need to provide universal access to essential services.
Yet in 1992 the legislation was changed. Castro (2003) explains that the process was ‘increasing state control over water resources, while simultaneously transforming the status of water from public to private good, and organizing its governance around market principles’(p.28). The premise was that scarcity problems in Mexico were because water had not been treated as an economic good. The importance of increasing state control was because of the need to regain power over water that was managed by communities so the municipalities would be directly in charge. The municipalities could then involve the private sector in the management of the resource. Since then, private participation in the water sector has increased in several states of the country changing the configuration of the water governance system from one previously dominated by the central government to one where the private sector and the local governments play increasingly an important role. Nevertheless there are important problems in the decentralisation process generating coordination inefficiencies.
In the next paragraphs, the roles of different actors of governance in the water sector in Mexico City will be addressed. Starting by giving a national overview, then the particular case of the Federal District will be introduced. Next the privatisation of water services and some of its consequences in the DF will be briefly tackled. Lastly the role of the organised civil society will be considered.
Public sector
Water management at the federal level
The National Water Commission (CNA) is the federal agency in command of the administration, policy making, custody and allocation of water in Mexico. Created in 1989, this organisation, together with the new law of national waters dictated in 1992, started a new way of management of the resource. It promoted two important things: decentralisation and privatisation (Martínez Omaña, 2004). The CNA is today a deconcentrated organisation of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).
One of the CNA’s most important activities is to supply bulk water to settlements. It is not its responsibility, though, to distribute within the settlements, and in some cases it is the local government that does the extraction of water. For instance, in the DF the water that is extracted from the underground is the responsibility of the local authority, while that brought from external sources is provided by the CNA. The municipalities and the DF are supposed to pay the CNA for the bulk water it provides, but many municipalities are indebted with this federal authority.
Martinez-Lagunes and Rodriguez-Tirado (1998) identify two important problems that this organisation has. Firstly, although one of the reasons for creating the CNA was to concentrate in a single agency water issues and favour co-ordination, this has not been entirely achieved. Secondly, the activities of CNA have created conflicts of interest within. For example, it is at the same time regulator of water quality and responsible for sewage discharge. The aim is to change this giving the CNA a predominantly normative character, yet maintaining technical support for the local authorities (CNA, 2003).
The CNA has organised water management in 13 hydrological regions. This is of considerable importance because it means that instead of managing the resource according to political divisions, it is managed with a logic that aims to be integrated and ecologically sustainable. Also important to sustainability is that finally water is part of the SEMARNAT, not of the Ministry of Agriculture and Hydraulic Resources (SARH) as it used to be. Notwithstanding these changes in the management of water, the goal of achieving environmental sustainability is still very far from being met.
The hydrological region Mexico City belongs to is called the Mexico’s Valley Region. It includes the DF, 56 municipalities of the State of Mexico, 39 of Hidalgo and 4 of Tlaxcala. The most important problems of the region identified in the National Hydraulic Programme (CNA, 2000:75) are: a) the overexploitation of underground waters, calculated as representing 140 per cent of the recharge capacity; b) water pollution; c) insufficient water delivery; d) significant inefficiency in irrigation systems and urban uses; e) damages due to flooding; f) competition among users for the resource.
Water management in the DF
In 2003, two previous government agencies were merged into the SACM (Water System of Mexico City). Before this merge the DGCOH (General Direction of Hydraulic Construction) was in charge of supplying water to the DF and constructing and maintaining the primary water network. The CADF (Water Commission of the Federal District) collected tariffs, supervised the job of the private companies and served the users. The second was created as part of the reforms that aimed to decentralise and promote private participation in the sector in 1992.
There are other agencies involved in water issues in the DF. The treasury, as well as the private companies and the SACM, collects bills and concentrates the total revenue from the system. The 16 delegaciones take care of the secondary network, which is the smaller diameter network delivering directly to the users. The SACM supplies bulk water for each delegación to distribute it. This gives the SACM considerable power in deciding where water goes without giving the delegación much room for manoeuvre, which will be addressed latter on.
The delegaciones have several difficulties in fulfilling their obligations. The most significant problems are related to the lack of human capacity, financial and human resources. The lack of materials for repairs of leakages and ageing personnel are two recurrent problems in most delegaciones. Moreover there are several services that are still centralised in the SACM making the delegaciones only intermediaries of paperwork. This demonstrates an incomplete decentralisation process (Delgado, 2004).
Concerning how the service is brought to different areas of the city by the authorities, Ward (1986) explains how the provision of water services in the irregular settlements is ‘open to partisan political influence’ (p. 91). He argues that the agencies designed to procure water to Mexico City have a technical image due to the relative success of providing water to many parts of the city. Yet when it comes to decide what neighbourhoods will be connected to the system and with what frequency they will receive water it becomes more a decision of the hierarchy of politicians, up to the mayor or even the president.
In 1997 the inhabitants of the DF for the first time elected a mayor and a local assembly with legislative powers (ALDF). A left wing party, the PRD, has dominated the political scene since; although the prevailing party nationally for 70 years, the PRI, continues to dominate in the State of Mexico. How this has changed the patronage system is still unclear. But the fact is that several parties try to compete for electorate support and it is not uncommon that they use the promise of better water provision for winning an election.
The ALDF is very aware of the strategic role water management plays in the development of the city. It published a water law in 2003 that specified the roles of the SACM and the delegaciones. Some members of parliament are continuously in touch with the SACM advocating for water services for different neighbourhoods and are commonly heading demonstrations. Currently there is a Special Committee for Integral Water Management in the ALDF working on how to improve the water management in the city with a particular focus on improving participation, financial sustainability, water provision and environmental sustainability (ALDF, 2004).
Private sector
In 1993, four private companies formed through combinations of national corporations and transnational water giants signed ten-year service contracts for the Federal District. Among the water transnationals involved in the city are Générales Des Eaux, Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux (today Suez), Anglian Water and Severn Trend (Martínez Omaña, 2004). A new contract negotiation is currently taking place. According to a water official the changes in conditions will not be significant (Germán Martínez Santoyo, interviewed by the author, 23/07/04).
The four private companies are responsible for users’ registration, the water metering and billing. This is a considerable increase in private participation in the sector but it is not complete privatisation or divestiture. According to Martínez Omaña (2004), the overall performance of the water companies has led to some improvements. Particularly considering efficiency in management, metering and billing, the private corporations have improved the situation in the DF.
Nevertheless according to Castro (2003) the public reaction to this was negative: ‘the response of water users took largely the form of civil disobedience, such as the non payment of water bills in protest for the steep increases in the tariff, but also included the destruction of water meters and other actions to sabotage the functioning of the new system’ (p.30). In fact, the employees of these four private companies wear uniforms and carry personal identifications using the SACM’s name instead of that of their own company.
Even those most in favour of private participation have seen the problems this has brought in the country. A WB document recognises: ‘The relative failure of PSP in Mexico has been exacerbated by a combination factors, including the absence of a clear regulatory framework for private participation, and design and procurement flaws resulting from ad hoc processes carried out by unprepared municipalities’ (Kemper and Alvarado, 2000). In addition the OECD emphasised this problem: ‘the regulatory environment proved insufficient, especially because the number of public organisations in the water sector led to severe co-ordination problems’ (OECD, 2003:126). Possibly this problem could be solved with the merge of the two previous government agencies into the SACM as mentioned earlier.
Yet private sector participation is most probably to continue and increase to some extent in the DF. While the number of employees of the public agencies – particularly with the creation of the SAMC – continues to decrease, the challenge of coordination among different government levels in order to be more capable of supervising the private companies remains. As long as this is not achieved, those who have currently the worst water services or no service at all will suffer most.
Organised civil society
Although the water law explicitly states that the CNA is to promote and favour users’ participation including decision-making capacities (LAN, 2004), the achievements of the organisations it created for this purpose, the Basin Councils, are unsatisfactory. The aim of these councils is to contribute to the integrated management of water, promoting sustainability and local participation. Yet the widespread belief in the academic sector and the local government is that they fail to achieve the goal of participation (interviewed by the author: Germán Martínez Santoyo, 23/07/04, Martha Delgado, 3/08/04).
Even the CNA admits the structure does not help to enhance participation (CNA, 2003). Allowing only one representative for agricultural water users and one for urban users as representatives of entire basins is clearly not enough for participation claims to be believed. Moreover the competences of the Basin Councils are narrow because they only authorise and supervise the programmes and plans but do not take part in many other important issues, for example tariff approvals or pollution charges (CNA, 2003).
For Martha Delgado, the member of local parliament driving water reforms in the DF, the Basin Councils are the spaces where users just sort out who is going to obtain what amount of water. They fail to promote wider participation and do not address issues of conservation. Additionally the CNA is inexperienced in dealing with social groups, particularly because its staff is dominated by technical specialists (interview with the author, 3/08/04).
Sadly, according to her, environmental NGOs in Mexico are not particularly concerned about water issues. These organisations, she argues, are not organised territorially but in relation to topics and they have not been generating debate in this area. Then the discussions around water issues become focused in how water should be distributed, disregarding how it should be managed for conservation and eventually making distribution easier.
Nevertheless at a community level, people do organise to contest the authority around service delivery issues. This has been a constant feature in the urbanisation process of the city. Recently, one of the most significant achievements of continuous protesting with the backing of local assembly members was by the inhabitants of the Sierra de Santa Catarina in Iztapalapa. Thanks to their ability to organise, they managed to get exemption of the payment of massive debts to the CADF. They made their point because the low quality water service they received could not justify the charges.
The unsuitability of the existing ‘spaces for participation’ is manifested in the frequency of water related conflicts in the metropolitan area. Two different studies show the considerable unrest concerning water issues in the metropolis. Castro (2004) analysed water related conflicts (from peaceful petitions to violent actions) through press reports from 1985 to 1992. His study shows the concentration of the conflicts in the DF in three delegaciones, but the majority of events were in some municipalities in the State of Mexico. This showed that lack of water is only suffered in some areas of the city. Central to his argument is the fact that water conflicts arise because of socio-political problems, not because of scarcity of the resource. In this sense, the current governance system allows management decisions to favour certain areas of the city over others generating socially unjust results.
The second study is that of Sainz Santamaría and Becerra Pérez (2003). They studied water conflicts at the national level and found that half of them were in Mexico City. They also found that the main way citizens manifested their demands was through demonstrations. This shows how urgent changes in the governance system are in order to solve these conflicts in more satisfactory and lasting ways.
All the previous discussion evidences that there are problems in the way the public, private and social sectors operate concerning water governance in Mexico City. The end result is that a considerable portion of the population either lacks water services or has a poor service. In the next section of this work, the discussion will be centred in which problems principally affect the residential water users in the city.
Social injustice in water issues in Mexico City
As mentioned in the theoretical framework, I consider that the two key dimensions of social justice are distribution and participation. In the previous section I have already dealt with the problems in the water governance system concerning the lack of proper channels for users’ participation to take part in the decisions concerning the management of the resource. This section will be more concentrated in the problems of distribution of water, the resulting social injustices and the conflicts generated by them. The distribution problems will be identified related with water availability and the way it is available, its quality, affordability and differences in price. Also, the important considerations of uneven spatial distribution and the differences among water uses – residential and non-residential (industry, commerce and services) – will be kept in mind.
Distribution and availability
The water available for the DF is 35m3/s; and, as the current general director of the SACM expressed in an interview, no more will be transported to the city (Ramirez Cuevas, 2002). Although there is a proposal for bringing water from Temascaltepec, the financial, political and environmental costs would be substantial. A much wiser choice is to work on demand management, efficiency, conservation and distribution.
Indeed the fact that the DF already has this water supply presents controversy and conflict with the State of Mexico that now claims the water from the Lerma and Cutzamala as theirs. Furthermore the untreated drainage of the DF generates serious problems to the state of Hidalgo where this highly polluted water is used for irrigation of crops consumed by the inhabitants of the city.
Thus the 35m3/s of water has to be somehow distributed among more than 8.6 million people that live in the DF. In 2000 only in the DF - which has been traditionally the place in Mexico that enjoys the best services – there were more than 400,000 dwellings without water connection inside their home (INEGI, 2000). This represents 22% of the dwellings in the capital. However a more common number given by the authorities is that 97% of the population has a water connection in the plot of their home. The mismatch of the data is because 19% of the dwellings have a water connection inside the plot where they live but not inside their home. Most probably this would often be a shared faucet with other dwellings in the plot. Although this is clearly a better access to water than having to walk considerable distances to fetch water outside the plot, it is still not an optimum service.
One of the most notorious differences in availability in the city is that between the east and west. Water availability in the west is more than enough, while in the east this is not so. The west is where the water from the external sources, the Lerma and Cutzamala, get into Mexico City (Tortajada, 2003). Therefore the pressures in this area are very high and water appears abundant (Libreros Muñoz and Quiñones Castillo, 2004). Not surprisingly the wealthiest neighbourhoods are located in the west while the poorer ones in the east (Ward, 1998). The location of lower income groups in the east of the city was because the upper and middle classes took over the west. The east and north are the areas where the lakes of the basin used to be (De Garay, 1856). Thus the problems of flooding were – and in some places still are – very frequent and made the areas less desirable.
Water distribution among the delegaciones is highly unequal and generates conflict especially during the dry season, when even authorities enter into conflict for the resource. For instance, the delegación Tláhuac limits with Iztapalapa. Both have an important number of users supplied through the tandeo[2] system. During the dry season these users are the first to suffer scarcity and the struggle for the resource is not only the demand from the users to their authorities but also among authorities themselves to satisfy their users’ claims. There are no institutional channels currently in place for these conflicts to be resolved.
In this difficult context where many residential users face the reality of having to invest considerable energy and time in getting water, 80% of the industries in the basin directly extract the water they need from wells. Many of these industries consume enormous amounts of the resource in their production processes. Here the debate of water as a public good or as an economic commodity becomes relevant. In my opinion it would be possible to defend water used for survival and hygiene as a public good and make it available to everybody, whereas water as an input for production is an economic commodity that should be priced accordingly (see section on ‘Affordability and price differences’). Yet this distinction does not necessarily brings us closer to a solution for distribution because if water is scarce then one or both of the uses will be limited in their consumption. This limitation would either impact the quality of life of the population having less water than they need or impact economic activities – which could eventually affect the availability of jobs and the wages paid, thus ultimately affecting people’s life quality. Certainly the residential use is the priority in social justice terms but it is a complex problem.
Distribution and quality
However the problems with water delivery are not only about having a water connection and getting it in a sufficient amount but also with good quality. For decades, citizens have been aware of the need to boil tap water to make it drinkable. But increasingly the problem of the quality in city water is not only about the presence of bacteria but of salinity, chloride ions, iron, manganese, ammonium and faecal coliforms (Ezcurra et al, 1999).
The greater problems of water quality are again found in the east, north and rural south of the city coinciding with the areas where the lower income groups live. Moreover there are constant claims that the water provided through the truck services has visible organisms and green or brown colour (Olayo Guadarrama, 2002). This situation is worse when the unavailability of the service forces people to stock water in inadequate containers that provoke further contamination of the water.
Affordability and price differences
Commonly water utilities consider two or three water uses and classify them as: residential water use and non-residential water use (industrial and/or commercial). This is the case in Mexico City. According to the use given to the resource, water tariffs are charged differently. This is only sensible because water used for survival and hygiene cannot be perceived as equivalent to water used as an input to a product. Thus there is a cross-subsidy between the non-residential and the residential use.
Both water usage tariffs are structured as inverted block rates. In this way, users consuming more water will be paying more per cubic meter than those using less water. The aim of tariffs set in this way is to promote conservation. Nevertheless there are problems in how the residential tariffs are set.
Residential users pay a subsidised tariff even if their consumption is excessive. In 2003, considering the average cost to the DF for each cubic metre it provided, the cost of operation would be covered only until a household consumed 90 m3 per month. Considering that the average household in the DF is 4.2 persons, basic water consumption according to Gleick would be 6.3 m3 per month. Even what the CADF regards as normal water consumption, 20 m3 per month (Germán Martínez Santoyo, interview with the author, 23/07/04), evidences a subsidy for a very high consumption. In these circumstances the goal of promoting conservation through tariffs may not be met, particularly for more affluent households for whom this water charge is insignificant.
Yet the solution of just restructuring the rates for families consuming more than 20m3 per month to pay at least the operation costs would have other problems. Often, lower income families tend to form larger households (particularly as a strategy to share expenditure among the extended family), consequently consuming more water than smaller households that might be better off. Thus, unless other measures are taken to target these lower-income larger households, there would be a socially unjust charging because it would be unfavourable for the most disadvantaged.
However with the current charges, when considering the water delivered by the utility, it is difficult to say that water is unaffordable. In the case of having only the minimum salary, normal water consumption would represent 4% of the income. Taking into account that in a general calculation spending 5% of an income in water is regarded as affordable (Winpenny, 2003); water in the city appears to be affordable. Nevertheless the problem arises when the family does not have a connection or the tandeo system does not satisfy their water requirements. It is here when water needs to be obtained through other systems that the issue of affordability becomes a concern, when the price paid for the resource is unjust and water becomes an expensive commodity for the poor.
Getting water through truck services is certainly much more expensive than receiving it through a water connection. The delegaciones provide water trucks for those without a water connection, and, when there is scarcity, for those neighbourhoods, generally in the east of the city, with connections that do not receive water (Ramirez Cuevas, 2002). This service is supposed to be free if the neighbourhood is regular, but in practice corruption of the drivers is common, demanding ‘tips’ for their service (Olayo Guadarrama, 2002). In contrast with the cost it represents to pay water from the utility, the cost paid for water from trucks can be 10 times as much, becoming unaffordable.
Getting water trucks to fill the containers at home is not an easy task and it is generally done by women. In times of scarcity, women can spend up to 10 hours of the day to obtain the water they need for 2 days (Ramirez Cuevas, 2002). This is a work load that restrains their ability to get engaged in income earning activities. It is not surprising that when it comes to demonstrations and other contentions to the authorities women dominate the scene (Delgado, 2004).
Another problem of affordability arises with connection charges. A water connection represents nearly two times a minimum month salary. There are no financing mechanisms for this payment. Adding to this is the very tedious and difficult procedure a user needs to follow to get a connection which might even take two years. In these circumstances no wonder there is a high percentage of illegal connections. These are estimated to be in the delegación Cuauhtemoc of 40 per cent (Delgado, 2004)!
In support of the argument set forward in the previous section of this work about the role of conflict in achieving a more socially just distribution and management of water, let us consider the example of Iztapalapa. Iztapalapa is the most populated delegación in the DF. It is located in the east of the city, having the availability problems of the area mentioned earlier. This delegación has traditionally been a combative one, promoting collective action in demonstrations and street blockages. Today many of the projects for improving the water provision in the city are concentrated in this area. Among the projects are the reopening of wells and purifying plants that aim to improve the water availability in Iztapalapa.
Yet much remains to be done to approach a more socially just distribution and management of water in Mexico City. The social injustice of the difference in the water service received by users in the DF is manifested in multiple ways. In the end it is generally neighbourhoods in the east delegaciones that receive the worst water quality, the least reliability of the service and pay the highest prices, with the women within these households bearing the heaviest burden. This in turn generates conflicts that have now challenged the governance system to the extent that the local parliament is working on various reforms to improve the current laws in water and the water service.
[1] Proposals concerning how water from other sources could be transferred to the city do exist but due to the high political, ecological, social and financial costs they would represent, they have not been carried out so far.
[2] Tandeo refers to water serviced in an inconstant manner. In some neighbourhoods that have water connections, water is only available at certain times of certain days to overcome the problem that the offer is less than the demand. This worsens during drought periods.(Libreros Munioz and Quiniones Castillo, 2004)
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