Residents of Guadalajara will be the main sufferers if the Zapotillo Dam in northeast Jalisco is not built to its planned height of 105 meters, the director general of Mexico’s National Water Commission (CNA) said this week.
Work on the controversial dam’s curtain has been suspended following a series of court orders dictating that it cannot go any higher than 80 meters. (The judge’s decision was based on an agreement signed in September 2005 determining the dam’s height at 80 meters. The CNA subsequently changed this specification after conducting further studies.)
Three weeks ago, the curtain had reached 79.7 meters when the CNA complied with the court and ordered constructors to halt work. Meanwhile, ancillary work is continuing at the site located on the Verde River 85 miles northeast of Guadalajara.
CNA Director David Korenfeld this week said water could not be guaranteed for Guadalajara if the Zapotillo Dam’s curtain remains 25 meters lower than originally planned. The dam will pump most of its water to the city of Leon, Guanajuato, while supplementing the water supply of communities in the local Los Altos region and the Guadalajara metropolitan area. Around 2.4 million people will benefit from the dam over the next quarter century, the CNA says.
Korenfeld this week noted that “millions of inhabitants of Guadalajara are clamoring for more water” and Zapotillo is vital to ensuring a significant part of that requirement.
The suspension is the latest chapter in a long legal battle to save three communities from being inundated under the waters of the new dam.
Activists say opposition to the dam remains strong, but according to the Jalisco Water Commission (Conagua), eight out of ten residents of Temacapulin have now agreed to be rehoused or indemnified, while all but one of the inhabitants of the two smaller communities, Acasico and Palmarejo, are willing to leave their homes.
More than 30 homes in “Nuevo Temacapulin” have been finished to house displaced residents.
Although Korenfeld said the CNA will respect court decisions, he remained confident that legal obstacles will be overcome and the dam be finished to its original specifications.
The final capacity of the Zapotillo Dam is expected to be 900 million cubic meters.