40 years without drinking water in Mexico’s Pachuca Camelia neighbourhood; a constant struggle for survival. More than 2,500 people in Camelia depend on unsafe water and face difficulties in accessing this vital resource due to the lack of response from the authorities.
Since the creation of the Camelia neighbourhood in the north of Pachuca 40 years ago, the residents have been without a safe source of drinking water to carry out their normal activities, a situation that affects more than 2,500 people.
Although the neighbours have water in their houses, because they are supplied by the Jaramillo reservoir through a hose line that comes from the roadside, this is not safe because it depends on the level of the reservoir and sometimes the hoses suffer damage that hinders the passage of the liquid; nor does it have pressure because of the slopes and paths of the terrain.
As Alicia Ordaz Rivera, the community’s delegate, says:
“We have never had drinking water. We get our water from the El Jaramillo dam, which is raw water. In the last few years we had a drought, the dam dried up and we suffered a lot for water.”
The little water the families of Camelia receive is possible because they have connected to the El Bordo aqueduct with their own resources, said Alicia Rivera, who explained that the neighbours had to buy the pipes and hoses to bring it to their homes.
The delegate from Camelia told El Universal Hidalgo that the lack of water is the main problem in the area, as is the lack of street lighting, despite being only 10 minutes from the capital. They have taken steps to find a project to solve the problem, but have not received a positive response.
Due to the lack of rainfall this year, the Jaramillo dam has run out of water and reached critical levels, forcing residents to buy water pipes at prices ranging from 2,500 to 3,000 pesos.
They question the fact that at election time they go out and vote for political campaigns, but when it comes to solving a problem with action, the neighbours are not looked after, so they are calling on the governor, Julio Menchaca Salazar, to get his government involved in solving the need for drinking water.
