Once-glittering lake sucked dry
Once a glittering weekend getaway for wealthy resi- dents of Mexico City, Valle de Bravo has been reduced to a shrinking, increasingly polluted patch of mud flats and water by a combination of drought, water trans- fers to the capital, bad planning and lawlessness.
Residents said Thursday that Valle — as the reservoir has been known since the 1940s — is being drained by Mexico City’s refusal to fix broken pipes that waste much of its water, as well as the unrestrained construc- tion of private dams and holding ponds by suspiciously wealthy and powerful newcomers. The National Water Commission, known by its Spanish initials as Cona- gua, has done little to remedy the problem.
Moises Jaramillo is one of the tour boat operators who has made his living taking less-monied tourists around the lake for years (the wealthy use their own sailboats). He says Conagua officials “don’t do any- thing. Their response is to come and intimidate us.”
That was a reference to a move last week by the Water Commission, which slapped closure stickers on the docks from where the boats launch. It is becoming difficult to lure tourists to the lake; visitors now have to walk out a few dozen metres over mud flats on impro- vised paths of stones, tires and boards to reach the shrunken shore, putting up with the increasing green- brown colour and smell of the water as they go.
Valle de Bravo resident Claudia Suárez was one of dozens of protesters who blocked traffic on one of Mexico City’s main boulevards in February, demand- ing Conagua take action to address the real problem in a chain of three lakes — known as the Cutzamala System — that supply Mexico City with about one- quarter of its water. “Forty per cent of the water that comes from the Cutzamala System is lost to leaks,” said Suárez. “That’s criminal.”
Mexico’s version of the Hamptons, Valle de Bravo lies two hours from Mexico City. Last week its reservoir was at 29.3 per cent of its capacity, compared to 52 per cent during the same week last year. Conagua and Mexico City officials have brushed off concerns, saying the problem will be solved in June, when central Mexico’s strongly seasonal rains begin again.
But Jaramillo says, “Last year when it rained, the level of the lake still fell.”
Everybody agree that beyond the very real drought late last year, there’s an underlying problem. Increas- ingly since the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a huge increase in the development of luxury com- pounds with private lakes for water-skiing and swim- ming. That has prevented huge amounts of water from ever reaching the reservoir.