Mexico on Friday declared water shortages in the northern state of Nuevo Leon a matter of “national security” as the region, home to Mexico’s industrial capital, has been crippled by a worsening drought in recent months. In a statement released Friday afternoon, the federal government said available water should be prioritized for public use and said existing federal water concessions to private companies could be modified or limited.
“We will be able to guarantee water (in the state of Nuevo Leon) for the next eight to 10 years,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at his regular press conference on Friday. Outrage has grown in recent months in the Monterrey metropolitan area, home to about 5.3 million people, as authorities sharply restricted residents’ access to water, even as commercial bottlers and beer companies continued to extract billions of gallons of water annually under federal authority concessions.
Heineken, which holds permits for 3.6 million cubic meters of water in the area, according to Mexico’s national water authority CONAGUA, said earlier this month it would hand over the equivalent of 20% of the drinking water used in its processes to residents. Photos of canned water donated by Heineken have gone viral on social media in recent days, drawing criticism from those who still lack water at home.
In June, authorities began limiting access to running water throughout the metropolitan area to just a few hours each morning.Water rationing has sparked sporadic demonstrations, with some residents protesting that they have spent long days and sometimes weeks without receiving any running water at all. Arca Continental Bottler, one of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers in Latin America and which also operates in Nuevo Leon, referred a request for questions to the local Caintra Chamber of Commerce, which declined to comment.
