Mexico has a Water Crisis

June 26, 2024 is Day Zero. It is the day that Mexico City is expected to run out of water.

Mexico City needs rain, but instead a different kind of storm has been brewing for some time leading to a crisis that it may be too late to solve.

The water crisis, much like the one that plagued South Africa in 2018, was foreseeable. For years, there were warnings that went seemingly unheeded. There is plenty of blame to share from water theft, the failure of government officials to adequately fund repairs, the extraction of water by major corporations, environmental concerns, and the influx of “digital nomads”.

The weather itself has produced some of the worst droughts in decades. The El Nino system that is currently affecting Mexico and portions of South America, has made the region hotter and dryer, affecting water supply in cities from Mexico to Colombia. But, it is the man made circumstances that have exacerbated the problem that Mexico City and the surrounding metropolitan area find themselves in.

The truth is that the current crisis has its roots in the colonization by the Conquistadors 500 years ago. When the Spainards first arrived the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan was an island community set in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The Aztecs had built a series of dikes, levees and canals to control the water levels, which were…