Of 210 reservoirs in Mexico, 114 are less than 50% compacity, a historical low

The National Water Commission ( Conagua ) reported through the Technical Committee for the Operation of Hydraulic Works (CTOOH) that it chaired this week, that 114 dams in Mexico have less than 50% capacity.

The specialists presented a report on the tasks implemented by Brigadistas for the Protection of Infrastructure and Emergency Attention (PIAE), in meteorological matters and storage of the 210 main dams in Mexico.

This report detailed that, regarding the storage of dams, of the 210 in the country, as of August 1, the total storage of these reservoirs was 57,806 million cubic meters (Mm3); that is, 7,659 Mm3 less than what was historically recorded on this date.

And of those 210 dams, 10 are 100% full, with 395 Mm3; 33 have between 75 and 100%, with 4,562 Mm3; 53, between 50 and 75%, with 36,498 Mm3 and 114 have less than 50%, with 16,351 Mm3.

The general director of the Water Basin Organization of the Valley of Mexico (OCAVM), of Conagua, Víctor Bourguett Ortiz, explained that the storage dams of the Cutzamala System (El Bosque, Valle de Bravo and Villa Victoria), which supply a part of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico, gradually increased, reaching 45.1% of its level, which represents 1.4% more than the figure registered on July 25 and, at the same time, 19.3% less than the historical level.

He stressed that the El Bosque dam has 42.1% of its filling, with 85.3 Mm3, which represents an increase of 4.5%; Villa Victoria, 33.1%, with 61.5 Mm3 and an increase of 1.3%, and Valle de Bravo, 52.2%, with 205.8 Mm3 and a reduction of 0.2 percent.

Regarding the operations related to the procurement of water, it was detailed that so far this year 24 operations have been carried out, in which more than 91,700,000 liters of drinking water have been delivered to more than 307,000 people from Baja California Sur, Coahuila, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tabasco.

“To facilitate the proper operation of municipal drainage systems and thereby reduce the risk of flooding, also so far this year, 36 drainage network cleaning and desilting operations have been implemented in 15 entities. In them, 8,370 manholes have been worked on and almost 739,000 linear meters of drainage have been removed, in support of almost 670,000 people.”

The Commission said that it also supports the operating agencies of Altamira, Tamaulipas, and Jonuta, Tabasco, with the eviction of more than 1,116,000 m3 of flooded water that will help the population of those areas.

Nuevo León is one of the states that has suffered the most from water issues. Regarding the Cerro Prieto dam of this entity, he pointed out that together with the Ingeniero Rodolfo Félix Valdez dam, known as El Molinito, in Sonora, the transfer of water was completed. In total, more than 11,300,000 m3 of water was pumped from both reservoirs, for more than 1,180,000 inhabitants.

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