On July 28, 2010 the United Nations General Assembly declared access to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life. The resolution calls on “states and international organizations to provide financial resources, build capacity and transfer technology, particularly to developing countries, in scaling up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all.” This year, Change.org has chosen water, and more specifically access to safe, clean drinking water, as the topic for their annual Blog Action Day event – an event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same important social issue on the same day.
Access to clean, safe drinking water and sanitation continues to be a problem for many Mexicans. Mexico voted in favor of the recently adopted United Nations resolution, however the country still has a long way to go in ensuring that all its citizens have access to clean, safe drinking water. According to a recent article on ipsnews.net, “the regional U.N. agency also noted that while areas in northern Mexico, along the U.S. border, had high levels of access to safe water, some parts of central and southern Mexico had very poor access.” and that, “According to the National Water Commission (Conagua), 9.7 percent of the Mexican population still lacks access to piped water and 13.6 percent to sanitation.”
In Mexico most of the water for human use is extracted from underground aquifers. Only about five percent of the 1.5 billion cubic meters of rainfall per year actually infiltrates into the subsoil and recharges the aquifers. According to drinking-water.org, “Groundwater supplies about 80 percent of Mexico City’s usable water. But demand from the over 18 million residents in the great Mexico City area is sucking the aquifers dry and causing the city to slowly sink into the soft soil of the ancient lakebed. Mexico City has sunk about nine meters over the past century.”
Mexico is one of the world’s top consumers of bottled water with some 8,000 water bottling and distribution companies operating in the country. Municipal water companies insist the tap water is safe, however in most cases tap water in Mexico is insufficiently treated and not safe for human consumption. According to ipsnews.net, “Social organisations that advocate for the right to water have reported that tap water in Mexico sometimes contains bacteria, arsenic and heavy minerals, and are calling for a real-time water quality monitoring system, to improve the National Network for Water Quality Monitoring used by Conagua since 1996.”
Here in Mexico City people frequently refer to the tap water as potable though Carlos has been quick to point out that they’re just talking about water that comes from the tap, and not necessarily implying that it’s safe to drink. Apparently, the distinction still needs to be made as there are many places in Mexico where people continue to live without access to running water in their homes.
From what I’ve observed, it appears that most people who can afford to purchase bottled drinking water for their homes choose to do so. The water is sold in 20 liter reusable bottles called garrafones. The first time you purchase one you pay roughly 50 pesos ($4) extra for the container, then each time you buy water you return the empty container. Just like there are numerous companies to choose from, there are also various labels and price points.
As a foreigner, I lack many of the natural defenses that most Mexicans have built up over their lifetime, and as it turns out, it’s often in my best interest to pay a little more for better quality drinking water. Standard quality bottled drinking water costs 34 pesos ($2.83)/20L. We use this water for drinking and cooking and use tap water for just about everything else — showering, washing dishes, laundry, etc.
We’re fortunate to be able to afford our choice of water. Though as you can probably imagine, for many Mexicans earning the minimum wage (roughly the equivalent of $4.32/day), or just slightly more, spending several dollars a week on drinking water simply isn’t an option. They must instead find some way of treating the municipal water themselves in their homes. There are a few options for treating the tap water at home such as boiling it or installing special filters to clean it. Most families who can’t afford to purchase bottled drinking water also can’t afford to install any type of filtering system and rely on boiling the water to make it safe for drinking. Of course, that’s only an option for those who live within reach of the piped municipal distribution system.
According to drinking-water.org, “Many Mexico City residents live beyond the reach of the piped distribution system. In rapidly-sprouting neighborhoods of unchecked development, piping systems simply aren’t available. In other areas, municipal service is intermittent and sometimes nonexistent.” Instead, the city’s most impoverished communities living in slums on the outskirts of the city are forced to rely on private vehicular water delivery. “Ironically, they pay the highest prices of all. Trapped by dependency on private contractors, some residents spend more than a tenth of their annual income on water in a city where those on the aging piping system pay much less.”
I’ve heard that the tap water in a few of Mexico’s resort cities, namely Cancun, is safe to drink and I’d be interested to know if that’s actually true or if it’s just another poor translation of potable. McClelland’s article on Mexconnect makes a similar point, “According to Herrera (Technical Secretary of the 2006 World Water Forum), there are still 11 million Mexicans, out of 106 million, without clean water. Interpreting a poor translation of his statements, I believe Herrera is referring to residents without piped water to their homes. Most telling of Herrera’s comments is that only 30 percent of drinking water in the country is treated. That explains why you can turn on the taps in San Miguel or the Mayan Cancun and get abundant clean water that you can’t drink. The municipality may call it potable water but it hasn’t been processed to kill all of those nasty little bugs that make you sick.”
For more information on Blog Action Day 2010 click here.
