Mexican authorities stop water withdrawal from reservoir that is home to upscale lakeside community

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Grappling with a severe drought, water authorities in central Mexico decided Tuesday to stop withdrawing water from a rapidly emptying reservoir that is home to an upscale community on the edge of a lake.

Residents around the Valle de Bravo reservoir had protested Mexico City drawing water from the lake, an area dotted with luxury homes about two hours west of the capital. The reservoir is now about three-quarters empty, which has hurt tourism and property prices.

Citlalli Peraza, regional head of the National Water Commission, said authorities have decided to stop withdrawing water from Valle de Bravo. She said they instead decided to supply Mexico City from the El Bosque reservoir, relatively sparsely populated and a little further from the capital. The El Bosque Reservoir is barely half full.

But authorities simultaneously received complaints from Mexico City residents saying they were receiving dirty or contaminated water. Residents of an upscale Mexico City neighborhood staged a protest Tuesday, blocking traffic on the city’s main north-south avenue, complaining about water that smelled of oil or gasoline.

Residents in other neighborhoods say that as reservoir levels fell, the water coming out of them became increasingly cloudy and foul-smelling.

Residents of Valle de Bravo complain that their reservoir is empty because of Mexico City’s refusal to repair broken pipes that waste much of its water.

The Water Commission said that so far this year, Mexico has received 29.6% less rain nationally than in an average year.

We are increasingly seeing tanker trucks delivering water to middle- and upper-class neighborhoods in Mexico City; many of the capital’s poorest neighborhoods have never had reliable water service.

Water shortages have caused fires in strange places.

Over the weekend, one of Mexico City’s two massive storm drains caught fire; Officials said waste gas built up inside the underground conduit and ignited, causing flames to shoot out of ventilation shafts tens of feet (yards) into the air.

Apparently, so little water flowed through the drainage system that the sewage stagnated, allowing gases to build up.

In March, one of the capital’s rainwater catchment basins caught fire, burning 30 hectares of parched vegetation.

The El Cristo Basin is one of a series of large retention ponds intended to retain excess water from storm sewers. Because the city is located in a high mountain valley with no natural drainage, sudden rushes of rainwater tend to overwhelm artificial drains; watersheds play the role of buffer.

Normally, the ponds are so green from previous rains that locals sometimes used them as makeshift soccer fields or for grazing animals.