Horacio Martínez Reyes, director of the Institute for Environmental Protection (IPA), pointed out on the program Cambios that despite the fact that the dams in Nuevo León are almost at their maximum capacity, the existing water supply only guarantees supply for three more years.
Given this scenario, he insisted in an interview with Víctor Martínez that the current abundance should not lead us to fall back into the bad habits of the past.
Abimael Salas anticipates a 2025 with regular rainfall in Nuevo León: “We are in a very favorable situation.”
“We are in a very fragile stage, we are in a very delicate balance: right now we receive a report every morning from Conagua and we can make certain calculations, and we compare this with what Dr. Aldo Ramírez of Tec told us, and he tells us that this is actually an illusion.”
“We have three years of water left, again; we have three years of water to get back to where we were in May or June of last year, at levels of around 20 percent,” he considered.
Faced with a scenario like this, and with the history of drought and water crises in the state, the specialist considered that major projects are needed to guarantee water supply over the longer term and not depend, as is often the case, on a storm or hurricane hitting the state.
“Projects have been undertaken, options have been explored, but truly, anything we don’t start today won’t be ready for three or four years.”
“We need these major long-term projects; we need to change the way we view our relationship as a city with water, personally, in our homes, in businesses, in industry, and so on,” he stated. From the IPA, he noted, they collaborate with Agua y Drenaje (Water and Drainage) on a program known as Empresas de 100 (100 Companies), and above all, they organize events to promote best practices.
Regarding consumption, he added, during the summer, Agua y Drenaje (Water and Drainage) must supply between 16 and 17 cubic meters per second, the equivalent of 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools per day.
“This involves the issue of unaccounted-for water, which is water that for whatever reason doesn’t reach homes, due to leaks, measurement errors, or water theft, which accounts for between 30 and 40 percent.”
“Of those 600 pools, we’re talking about 150 or 200, or a little more, being lost; it’s not that we consume a lot of water; the issue is that unaccounted-for water inflates these numbers,” he asserted.
Regarding the sectors that made the most progress in water use after the most recent water crisis, the IPA director recognized SMEs as those that learned the most.
Municipal Drought Alert
Although Nuevo León’s dams have maintained high storage levels since June of last year due to Tropical Storm Alberto, some municipalities remain on alert due to the drought they are experiencing.
The lack of rainfall so far in 2025 has already wreaked havoc in some areas of the state, to the point that in just two weeks, from late February to mid-March, the number of municipalities affected by drought doubled.
According to the National Water Commission’s (Conagua) Drought Monitor, on February 28, only five municipalities in the state were experiencing some degree of drought; By March 15, the number had increased to 11.
Among the affected municipalities, Agualeguas, Los Aldamas, China, General Treviño, Lampazos, and Sabinas Hidalgo are currently experiencing moderate drought, while Anáhuac, Doctor Coss, General Bravo, Parás, and Vallecillo are already facing severe drought.
Together, these municipalities represent one-fifth of Nuevo León’s territory experiencing drought conditions.
In addition to the municipalities already experiencing drought, Conagua has identified nine others as “abnormally dry,” meaning that if the lack of rainfall persists, they could soon enter some drought category.
Conagua’s Drought Monitor classifies this phenomenon into five levels: abnormally dry, moderate, severe, extreme, and exceptional, the latter being the most serious.
The mayor of China, Alejo Rodríguez, acknowledged that the drought is already affecting the municipality’s residents, especially livestock farmers.
“We’re facing several drought situations: about a month ago, frost fell here in Nuevo León, and all the grass, all the livestock feed, burned. In China, livestock farming is the main activity, and that has directly affected us greatly,” he explained.
Although the ranches still have water, access to it for human consumption is already a challenge in some areas.
“We’re trying to bring water to the ranches with municipal trucks and with support from the Livestock Union, but we need more trucks because the ones we have are many years old and are constantly breaking down. People have water right now, but if it doesn’t rain between now and May, it will start to dry up,” the mayor added.
The crisis has also forced many ranchers to sell their cattle due to a lack of feed.
“Because there’s no grass, people have to scorch the cactus or buy bales of feed. A lot of cattle are being sold because producers can no longer sustain their livestock,” Rodríguez explained.
Source: milenio
