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Mexico City's Water Supply for 9 Mln Threatened by Faulty Pipes
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The stone remains of an aqueduct built by the Aztecs remind Mexico City residents of the capital's longtime dependence on outside sources for water.

Five hundred years later, Mexicans can't ensure the city, North America's largest, is getting the water it needs.

Broken pipes leak more than a third of the water the city's 9 million residents consume, said Juan Carlos Guasch, technical director for the city's water system. The neighboring state of Mexico, the main supplier, says the city is taking more than double its allotment because of faulty infrastructure.

``Water is the Achilles heel of development for the whole country,'' said Juan Lindau, director of the political science department at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, who teaches courses on Latin American studies and has written three books on Mexico. ``A lack of water if anything is going to lead to the deindustrialization of Mexico City.''

Replacing Mexico City's pipes, some a century old, would cost about 3 billion pesos ($277 million) and take as long as 15 years, Guasch said. Carlos Slim, the country's richest person, in July called on private investors to help finance improvements to the city's waterworks, saying the aging network is holding back investment and becoming a nuisance to residents.

`Private Investment'

``This is where it makes sense for private investment to support these projects so they're not limited by state and federal budgets,'' said Slim, 65, at a July 28 event to inaugurate improvements to downtown Mexico City.

President Vicente Fox, 63, on Oct. 7 signed an agreement with state and city officials that may lead the federal government to restrict the flow of water to Mexico City, said Benjamin Fournier, 43, the state's water and public works secretary. The state wants Fox's government to take control of pumping stations that the city operates.

``Mexico City's water problem has been getting worse,'' said Adolfo Albo, chief economist at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA's Bancomer unit in Mexico City, the nation's largest bank. ``This is a symptom of the lack of Mexico's overall competitiveness and efficiency.''

U.S. cities on average leak about 10 percent of water from their systems, said Oscar Martinez, a Mexico City water engineer. The average for German and Japanese cities is about 5 percent, he said.

In Mexico City, ``the system is a sieve,'' Guasch said.

Aztecs

The capital, built atop Lake Texcoco, has been depleting its aquifer since Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521. The reservoir once spewed water like an oil well at the beginning of last century.

Shortages are a part of daily life for some Mexico City residents, including Magnolia Salinas, who receives running water at her home only once a week.

``We've learned to live like this, but it's a pain,'' said Salinas, 31, who has to flag down tanker trucks that fill a cistern under her home in the Iztapalapa neighborhood. ``Sometimes we have to go bathe at my father's house.''

The lack of sufficient water increases the cost of operating Salinas' family business - a tortilla factory. Salinas said her family pays 400 pesos a week for a tanker truck to pump water into a cistern to keep the plant running.

The city has full-time crews that plug as many as 40,000 leaks per year. The pipes crack easily in part because they are made from cement and asbestos and also because Mexico City's soft subsoil constantly shifts.

At the current rate the city is replacing the 12,000 kilometer of pipes, it will take another 90 years to finish, said Guasch, 46.

Pressure Valves

Officials are installing pressure valves, replacing pipes and reorganizing the system to better isolate leaks, said Guasch. The aim is to reduce the loss over the next eight years to 20 percent of the 8,700 gallons (33,000 liters) per second that Mexico City residents consume from 37 percent now, Guasch said.

``Everything translates into a money problem,'' Guasch said. ``Everybody blames someone else, but nobody puts in money.''

Irma Perez, 52, conserves water because she has to. She gets running water most days until about 10 a.m. and uses it to fill barrels for bathing, washing dishes and flushing the toilet later in the day. The water pressure is so weak she hasn't been able to fill the tank sitting on her roof for years.

``We're better off than most,'' she said. ``There's little water, but at least we have it in the morning.''

Salinas isn't as lucky. The cistern she fills with the yellow-tinted tap water she gets on Thursdays doesn't always last the whole week.

``It's not unusual for us to run out of water,'' she said. ``It's something that happens all the time around here.''