Industrial activity overexploits water in Yucatan; in 17 years, the liquid has decreased by 60%
According to POR ESTO, the Citizen Council for Water in Yucatan, a member of the Promoter Group of the Autonomous Comptroller of Water in Yucatan, warned that permits continue to be granted to large extractive industries of the vital liquid from the local subsoil. It is said that “we have unlimited water and that industries can continue to arrive in this territory, without collapsing the aquifer, either through contamination or over-extraction.”
However, this citizen association documents that in just 17 years – from 2003 to 2020 – the volume of groundwater available in Yucatan decreased by 59 percent: from 5,759 million cubic meters it was reduced to 2,386 million m3.
From 2015 to 2023 alone, Conagua has granted 3 billion m3, or 52 percent of the water available for the expansion of the pig and poultry industry, the construction of industrial parks, real estate, and the growth of the soft drink and beer industry.
At the peninsula level, in 2017 the volume of water consumed was 4,792 hm3, of which 13 percent corresponds to the public supply, 72 percent to the industrial sector, and 14 percent to the primary sector (agriculture and animal husbandry, as can be seen in the following link http://blog.enesmerida.unam.mx/a-dondeva-el-agua-en-la-peninsula-de-yucatan-la-gran-reserva-de-agua-en-mexico/
So, who are the water millionaires in Yucatan? The Citizen Council answers:
- In Yucatan, it is the large industries that keep the water. In the East, the Enerall industry is monopolizing the water from the aquifer where availability has dropped by 59 percent. Enerall is one of the water chieftains at the national level, with at least 30.5 million m3 of liquid annually.
Enerall, with impunity, has not only devastated jungles and attacked endemic fauna species, but has also attacked sacred cenotes by filling them in, without Conagua or Profepa fining or closing them as should happen if the law were to be applied. - The Mexican Pork Group, commercially known as Kekén, has 22 concessions with an annual water volume of 8.2 million m3 in different locations for industrial, livestock, agricultural, and different uses, according to the Public Registry of Water Rights.
And according to the same source, its daily waste is 7,310 million liters per day. With the organic waste from these mega-factories, Kekén is one of the most polluting industries in Yucatán, since we are not only talking about its waste but also that is produced in the more than 100 mega-farms that have sharecropping agreements with Kekén.
The Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) detected that there are 507 possible pig farms in at least 80 municipalities of the state. However, for the National Water Commission (Conagua) it seems not to be important to monitor and protect the quality of the water in the underground aquifer on which 100 percent of all human activity in Yucatán depends.
Kekén, as we have reported, has a monopoly on pork production and sales, and in the communities where they are installed, there are documented facts through the voices of the population that prohibit them from raising their pigs. This industry, with its waste and odors, affects traditional work activities in the communities, such as beekeeping, agriculture, and local livestock.
- In Hunucmá, the Constellation Brands brewery, known as the Yucatecan brewery, takes at least 7 million m3 annually. This volume corresponds to 30 percent of the water granted to this coastal municipality, which has generated scarcity in the communities for domestic use and agriculture.
In Hunucmá, the warnings made by the scholars before the operation of the brewery are being fulfilled: wells with brackish water have already been identified: seawater is already entering the wells due to the large volumes extracted daily and this represents an enormous risk that once again Conagua, nor any other agency, has considered.
TYT Newsroom
