Amid drought, water shortage is crisis in Mexico
MEXICO CITY - In the parched Mexican countryside, the corn is wilting, the wheat stunted. And here in this vast and thirsty capital, officials are rationing water and threatening worse cuts as Mexico endures one of the driest spells in more than half a century.
A monthslong drought has affected broad swaths of the country, from the US border to the Yucatan Peninsula, leaving crop fields parched and many reservoirs low. The need for rain is so dire that water officials have been rooting openly for a hurricane or two to provide a good drenching.
“We really are in a difficult situation,’’ said Felipe Arreguin Cortes, deputy technical director for Mexico’s National Water Commission.
This is supposed to be Mexico’s wet season, when daily rains bathe farmland and top off rivers and reservoirs. But rainfall has been sporadic and unusually light - the result, officials say, of an El Nino effect this summer that has warmed Pacific Ocean waters and influenced distant weather patterns.
Mexico’s hurricane season has been mild, with no major hits this summer, although a weak Hurricane Jimena dropped plenty of rain on parts of Baja California and the northwestern state of Sonora last week. The sparse rainfall nationwide has made 2009 the driest in 69 years of government record-keeping, Arreguin said.
Although nearly two months remain before the rainy season ends in October, the drought is an unwelcome blow to an economy laboring under a recession that has crimped exports and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Mexican growers report more than $1 billion in losses from crops planted during spring, in anticipation of seasonal rain. Hard hit have been corn, beans, barley, and sorghum, plus livestock.
Farmers and officials say the effect, including lost earnings, unpaid debts, and shortages of staple foods, could be felt well into next year.
“Although no one wants to recognize it, there is a food crisis,’’ said Cruz Lopez Aguilar, president of a national federation representing rural dwellers. He and others say increasing imports to make up for lost crops could raise food costs.
Mexican officials play down the severity, saying lost production can be offset during the fall growing cycle, when crops are irrigated and rely less on direct rainfall. A federal government insurance program is meant to cover farmers affected by drought.
The dry period has also lent new urgency to longtime water worries in metropolitan Mexico City, home to 20 million residents.
Officials for several months have been rationing water from a network of outlying reservoirs, known as the Cutzamala system, which provides at least a fifth of Mexico City’s water. Cutbacks recently have been doubled, to 30 percent of supplies.
Rationing means lower flows in many neighborhoods for days at a time, but no citywide cutoffs.
