The state of Guanajuato, in north-central Mexico, and the federal government will invest 15 billion pesos in the construction of one of the most ambitious hydraulic works in recent years: the Solís-León aqueduct. It will stretch for 187 kilometers and the governor of this entity, Dennise García Muñoz Ledo, predicts that it will become the “largest dam in the country”. However, although they emphasize the benefits it will bring to the people of the southwest of the state, farmers, producers, civil organizations and environmental and human rights defenders consider it a threat. “We fear that a federal government that talks about respect for the environment, of a scientist who runs the country, will affect the environmental systems of our region. We consider this work to be ecocide,” says Juan Manuel Ayala López, spokesperson for the Fray Raúl Vera López Human Rights Observatory.
The protests began just over four months ago. And they intensified over the weeks into a general unrest also fueled by demonstrations by farmers and transporters in various parts of Mexican territory. The announcement of the start of work on the Solís-León aqueduct, made in September by President Claudia Sheinbaum, triggered alarm and residents in different areas of Guanajuato began to express their discontent, especially because they had not been consulted.
“This was done without the famous prior, informed and free consultation that must be done with this type of projects that affect communities. Everything was done as if in secret. Official information on the project was even reserved for five years; this also aroused a lot of distrust among people, we wonder why something is hidden that should interest us all”, denounces Ayala López, who in addition to being spokesperson for the Human Rights Observatory, is one of the members of the group society organized for the defense of Solís. dam.
The aqueduct – which will supply water to the municipalities of Celaya, Salamanca, Irapuato, Silao and León – is not only happening thanks to the resistance of civil society. In addition, it revives a dispute between Guanajuato and its neighbor Jalisco that dates back several decades, when the construction of the El Zapotillo Dam, in the territory of Jalisco, opened a struggle for water distribution, which ended with a presidential decree of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2021, which excluded Guanajuato and focused on supplying the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
Citizens and councilors in the Lake Chapala riparian area in Jalisco state have filed some 5,000 appeals against the aqueduct, including a few thousand supported by Governor Pablo Lemus, who has publicly expressed concern about the project. On November 2, in a video shared on his networks, Lemus said: “We cannot allow the construction of the aqueduct because it would affect the diversions of Lake Chapala and it would be something very delicate. We must unite.”
Estimates from the groups in Guanajuato who gathered to protest and demand a halt to the work already started, estimate that at present in this state the affected population is already around 800,000 and one million people, among them around 25,000 farmers.
The promise of technology
The main argument of the federal and state governments is technicalization. Governor García Muñoz Ledo and President Sheinbaum assured that it was a lie to want to take away water from people to benefit others and accused the dissidents of not being sufficiently informed of the benefits of the project.
Irrigation Technology (TR) of Irrigation District 011 — in Alto Río Lerma, Guanajuato — refers to a process of modernizing agricultural infrastructure by applying systems that reduce water consumption on plots, promising to save time for other activities and increase farmers’ income, if more efficient systems such as watering and drip irrigation are implemented. And even if the speech is clear, the inhabitants of the regions concerned and the farmers still have many doubts.
Producers from Acámbaro, Salvatierra, Jerécuaro and other municipalities have categorically rejected the construction of the aqueduct and assure that their distrust of the modernization comes from the government’s promise that the project would be completed in 2028, while the modernization would end until 2029. “The year it doesn’t rain, what are we going to do? asks Raúl Jasso, one of the delegates of local producers.
Ayala López underlines her concern. “We consider as a mockery the famous environmental impact manifesto that the state government indicates to carry out the works, because it is a document based on another document. It seems that they did it in haste, unprofessionally or as if to meet the requirements and it even contains very serious errors. It speaks of the realization on this bank of the Ameca river and not of the Lerma river. The Ameca river is in Veracruz”, he said with a worried laugh.
Furthermore, he insists that these works have been the dream of many businessmen who, for years, have been ignored in their intentions to mainly supply the industrial zone of the state, in León and its surroundings. “We all suspect that this water, which is intended for irrigation and which the government mentions as being for domestic and agricultural use, actually goes to the industries and powerful industrialists of León, where the largest number of industries in the state are concentrated and where big businessmen live, including former governors who have water concessions and who constitute a population that has been experiencing a water crisis for many years.”
Bishop Raúl Vera, one of the most critical faces of the project, signed a letter on November 10 in which he called on the population to unite and stop the construction of the aqueduct and in which he criticized the government for its decision: “The aqueduct is intended to supply the water that never arrived from the El Zapotillo dam, a project that threatened the existence of three communities in Jalisco: Temacapulin, Acasico and Palmarejo. betrayal and fear sown by the authorities. (…) Behind these words lies a serious danger: the diversion of 120 million cubic meters of water per year, which would endanger the flow that feeds Lake Chapala and, with it, the very viability of the ecosystem that gives life to thousands of families.
The Guanajuato Executive Branch Transparency Committee classified key project documents as confidential information for five years. Added to this is the groups’ fear of the possible involvement of the Israeli national water company, Mekorot, advisor to the National Water Commission (Conagua) in Mexico for several years. There is also the lack of confidence in the environmental impact study presented, they say, quickly, improvised and with many errors, to justify the work.
“Our opposition is not to the human right to water, but to the unjust and dishonest use of water, which dispossesses the poorest for the benefit of those who already concentrate wealth,” said Mgr Vera. Ayala concludes: “We are telling the relevant authorities at the three levels of government concerned that we demand the immediate suspension of the project. »
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