The Last Drops of Mexico City

Just casually throwing in &#x27;overpopulation&#x27; when in so many places, water for actual human needs like drinking, bathing and even washing clothes, is a tiny fraction compared to much more wasteful things like grass, America&#x27;s largest crop.<p>I live in a dry bit of the American west and municipal usage is a small fraction of water usage (about 8%). Agriculture is often not very efficient because of old water rules that give water to things like hobby farms when real farms downstream don&#x27;t get what they need.

I live in Mexico. About 30 mins from where I live, Amazon and others have built data centers (presumably for AI) which consume water. This is affecting agriculture in a region that is already suffering from drought.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.context.news&#x2F;ai&#x2F;thirsty-data-centres-spring-up-in-water-poor-mexican-town" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.context.news&#x2F;ai&#x2F;thirsty-data-centres-spring-up-i...</a>

One thing I&#x27;d like more info on is in what ways Nestlé and other water companies have contributed to the problem.<p>I&#x27;ve long heard that they lobby to prevent the local Government in CDMX from providing potable water in order to protect their bottled water and water-delivery business, but I actually don&#x27;t know how well substantiated those accusations are.<p>On the positive side of things, Mexico City gets a ton of rain during the wet season which can be harvested with rooftop collectors.

Nezahualcoyotl&#x2F;Neza, Naucalpan, and Ecatepec (the municipalities mentioned) are not in Mexico City proper.<p>They along with Iztapalapa are the former slum towns. How much of the water crisis can be attributed to the fact that these were all unplanned muncipalities, with split governance between Mexico State and CDMX<p>Edit: Yep, looks like only 15% of water in Mexico is allocated to human consumption and the rest is for agriculture and manufacturing [0].<p>Now I&#x27;m curious how many seats in Estado Mexico&#x27;s assembly are within the CDMX metro and how many are not. If majority of them aren&#x27;t within the CDMX metro then it&#x27;s the classic democracy dilemma you see in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Philippines, etc as well.<p>[0] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.axios.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;11&#x2F;26&#x2F;mexico-water-crisis-claudia-sheinbaum" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.axios.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;11&#x2F;26&#x2F;mexico-water-crisis-claudia...</a>

It is never mentioned that electricity from fossil fuel generation consumes a lot of water.<p>According to the U.S. Geological Survey, electric power generators are the largest source of U.S. water withdrawals and account for about 40% of total water withdrawals in the United States:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eia.gov&#x2F;todayinenergy&#x2F;detail.php?id=37453" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eia.gov&#x2F;todayinenergy&#x2F;detail.php?id=37453</a><p>Thermoelectric power plants—including coal, nuclear, and natural gas plants—boil water to create steam, which then spins a turbine to generate electricity. Cooling water is passed through the steam leaving the turbine to cool and condense the steam. This step reduces the steam&#x27;s exit pressure and recaptures its heat, which is then used to preheat fluid entering the boiler.<p>U.S. thermoelectric plants are the largest source of U.S. water withdrawals, accounting for more than 40% of total U.S. water withdrawals in 2015:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eia.gov&#x2F;todayinenergy&#x2F;detail.php?id=50698" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eia.gov&#x2F;todayinenergy&#x2F;detail.php?id=50698</a>

I live in Mexico City and a large part of this is the odd compulsion that chilangos have to put concrete over absolutely everything. It rains but there is very little unpaved surfaces to absorb any of that water and return it to underground sources. I&#x27;ve had friends and family members inexplicably rip out nice gardens at their houses and replace it with paved surfaces. My in-laws have a large yard that only has a few square meters of unpaved ground left. My street has flooding problems during intense rains every couple years in large part because no water can be absorbed anywhere and if the small street drains get clogged with branches it is a disaster.

Off topic: This page is beautiful. Love it when people use magazine-style layouts on the web.

Been in Mexico almost 7 years- it&#x27;s common knowledge, you don&#x27;t drink the tap water, ever. The destitute who can&#x27;t afford bottled water might be the exception.

I kept hoping they&#x27;d provide a reference of Tenochtitlan. Possibly the most striking thing I learned when visiting Mexico City.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tenochtitlan" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tenochtitlan</a>

Ok, so nobody seam to talk about the privatisation of water in Mexico.<p>It is at the root of the problem. Coca Cola is the most known absurd operator of this industry. National water is too cheap and used by private company for nearly nothing. Vicente Fox was a president of Coca Cola company in Mexico before becoming the president of Mexico, you can guess the « colonisation » was easier by that. (Coca Cola isn&#x27;t alone, it is just the most known, Danone, the French company is also plundering Mexico water for example, AI datacenter too, ...).<p>Coca cola is known to be responsible for the drying of Monterrey and San Cristobal de Las Casas.

I have an honest question here, that is a bit off-topic:<p>When I look at the pictures, I see most people are overweight (some are outright fat and obese). Is that just by accident on these particular pictures with a tiny sample size? Or is that a problem in Mexico?<p>I&#x27;m from Europe and when I think about Mexico, I do not have overweight people in my mind, instead a relatively healthy diet of local produce. Is that a misconception?

&quot;The Water Knife&quot; by Paolo Bacigalupi

I&#x27;ve heard from a Mexican buddy that Coca Cola is cheaper in Mexico than drinking water.

An important detail that the article has somehow left out. Texcoco, one of Mexico City&#x27;s main lakes is salty. The Aztecs built a system of dams to separate the salty waters of the lake from the rain water of the effluents.

My goodness my eyes really must suck. Had to zoom into that article multiple times in order to read it (especially the photo captions).

Will any of the feet of snow that dropped on Colorado Cali and Utah make it down to CDMX supply basins?

Also Valle De Bravo is the Hamptons of Mexico

Nuclear desalination. We could have had this decades ago, the real atoms for peace dividend. The boomers are stupid though, and the fact that the world has freshwater shortages and we have to consider carbon emissions (to whatever degree it will be a problem) from electricity generation is entirely their fault. And they are still squandering this gift.

How are we doing with next-gen solar desalination?<p>Or has all science been defunded at this point?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.mit.edu&#x2F;2022&#x2F;solar-desalination-system-inexpensive-0214" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.mit.edu&#x2F;2022&#x2F;solar-desalination-system-inexpens...</a><p>I know some US warships have massive desalination plants onboard, are they nuclear powered? Can we use the new micro-nuclear-reactors to power those for cities?

Mexico City is having a serious problem right now

Interesting article.<p>Terrible craftmansship in the HTML&#x2F;CSS department.

Mexico city is doomed, to what exactly and when, is an open question, and perhaps it&#x27;s where it&#x27;s position on the doomometer compared to anywhere else, is pertenent. It serves &quot;us&quot; as a distraction of our own doomomedness and why not, my Mexican friends, are (jovialy) derissive about any number of things happening in, redacted, redacted, gringredacted, places.