Candidates for Jalisco governor may be scoring points with voters by opposing two major water infrastructure works but they won’t have much to say in the matter should they win the July 1 election.
Neither the controversial second aqueduct to ferry water from Lake Chapala to the Guadalajara metropolitan zone or the massive Zapotillo Dam in the Los Altos region of Jalisco will be scrapped because of the opposition of an incoming governor, say Jalisco Water Commission (CEA) President Cesar Coll and National Water Commission (Conagua) President Jose Luis Luege Tamargo.
All three leading candidates for Jalisco governor – Aristoteles Sandoval of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Enrique Alfaro of the Citizens Movement and Fernando Guzman of the National Action Party (PAN) – have voiced their opposition to the new Chapala aqueduct. Coll, however, says the project is still very much alive.
The current aqueduct has not received maintenance for 20 years, Coll points out. “If this aqueduct collapsed it would be a real tragedy for 2.6 million inhabitants of the metropolitan zone whose only access to water is from this source.”
Both Alfaro and Sandoval, who are leading the race for the Jalisco governor’s seat, are also opposed to the Zapotillo curtain dam currently under construction on the Verde River in the northeastern part of the state.
The dam is set to flood approximately 4,816 hectares of farmland, including the pueblos of Temacapulin (known as Temaca), Acasisco and Palmarejo in the municipality of Cañadas de Obregon. Conagua is building a new town in the region to house about 1,000 people set to be displaced by the dam.
Construction of the dam has moved ahead – Conagua says it is 44 percent complete – despite the continued opposition of residents who do not wish to be moved from their homes and national and international civic NGOs.
Speaking this week, Luege Tamargo said a new governor has no power to halt the project since its funding was approved by both the Jalisco and Guanajuato state congresses. The Zapotillo Dam is intended to supply water to northern Jalisco, the city of Leon, Guanajuato and to supplement water supply to Guadalajara’s metropolitan area (150 kilometers away). Its backers say 2.4 million people will benefit from the dam over the next quarter century.