maybe they should try Mexico Zero day arriving soon for Mexico...

maybe they should try Mexico
Zero day arriving soon for Mexico City and Bogotá?

by Robpos
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Sunday, May 26, 2024 at 12:56:39a AEST
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When the well goes dry...
Back in 2018, Cape Town, SA, came within months of running out of water and coined the term Zero Day to illustrate the crisis and spur action. This year, officials in Mexico City and Bogotà are facing a possible Zero Day next month. Already, water service in Mexico City is becoming more and more unreliable for more and more residents, especially for the poorer residents, who, in the best of circumstances, had little by way of stable access. When the water does flow from the taps, it comes out brown with a noxious odor. In Bogotà, reservoir levels have fallen so fast that the city government has instituted rationing by employing rotating water shutoffs. The mayor of Bogotà has also asked residents to shower together and leave the city on weekends to reduce water usage.
In Cape Town, the city implemented a massive public awareness campaign and rolled out a system of strict fines to curtail water usage. Their response is seen today as a success story in municipal crisis management. They enacted a tariff system that targeted the highest water users with higher prices per gallon and a door knocking campaign to shame the biggest water hogs. But, the most effective aspect of the campaign was rhetorical. When city officials informed the citizenry that they would be able to get buckets of water from centralized collection points, managed by the military, consumption plummeted and residents began sharing conservation tips, such as recovering water used for showering for flushing the toilet, also.
  
The situation in Mexico City and Bogotà is very different, however. A massive investment in infrastructure is required to make up for years of deferred maintenance and trust in the government is lacking. While Bogotà is seen to have a a good reservoir system, additional sources of water to back it up need to be brought on line. They do have a healthy aquifer beneath the city and it wouldn’t break the bank to tap it. Additionally, the World Resources Institute has shown that restoring the environment around the Bogotà River would help to make the river water potable. In Mexico, projects are needed to fix the severe leaks and develop wastewater treatment to restore the water to drinking quality levels. Mexican elections are coming up and while the incumbents are downplaying the situation, the challengers are hyping it up. Whether the will exists from the politicians to give these projects the prioritization they need to address the situation after the election remains to be seen
Hopefully, the receding El Nino will help ease the crisis and the relieve the heat dome hovering over Central and South America and the ascendant La Nina will deliver the much needed rain to end the drought. (But, not too much, please) Otherwise, the climate refugee and immigration problem will become a much more pressing reality that we will need to comprehensively address in the very near future.