On May 29, 2021, a boom reverberated through Santa María Zacatepec, a small town near the city of Puebla, in central Mexico. At first, the sound might have been mistaken for one of the earthquakes or small volcanic eruptions that are common in the area. Then some local children told their mother that a strange hole had appeared in the farmland behind their house.
One company in particular has become the target of a protest movement: Bonafont, a subsidiary of the Danone group that operates several water-bottling plants in Mexico, including one near Santa María Zacatepec. For years, Pueblos Unidos, a local alliance of water-rights activists whose name translates to United Peoples, has been protesting companies that tap into the aquifer.
Several Pueblos Unidos members had converged on the well to fill up their blue water barrels. We peered into its depths as they explained how local wells are built. Brick stabilizes the walls, they said, and periodic cavities serve as footholds for anyone who needs to climb down. Locals, I learned, save up to afford the services of a, or artisanal well digger; when they hit water, it’s common for neighbors to come drink and eat in celebration.
Back then, some Mexicans would have considered the idea of buying drinking water as absurd as buying bottled air. That started to change in 1985, when an earthquake near Mexico City killed thousands and wrecked the city’s infrastructure, cutting off access to tap water and contaminating it. Six years later, a cholera epidemic reached Mexico after killing more than a thousand people in Peru.
Still, the activists of Pueblos Unidos viewed the selling of a shared water source as symbolic of a troubling trend. Bonafont’s plant was situated near their wells, on a visible stretch of highway, and it tapped a water source that they viewed as belonging to everyone. “We have to defend it so we won’t be buying it soon,” a member of Pueblos Unidos told me. “I do not buy even one bottle of water.
The activists were buoyed by the media interest: suddenly, their local protest had national and even global relevance. They say that Bonafont did not formally respond to Pueblos Unidos and declined an invitation to a local gathering. In response, Bonafont told me that it sought to establish a dialogue with Pueblos Unidos from the beginning and offered a mediation, but the activists “refused any dialogue outside of their conditions, which basically came down to accepting unacceptable falsehoods.
janinegibson
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beltrandelrio Que buen artículo, preocupa mucho está sobre explotación de los acuíferos y su impacto. Pero seguimos consumiendo agua embotellada. 😡
I know the Devil’s Mouth when I see it
“A bottled-water company tapped an ancient aquifer that thousands of people and businesses share. Local, rural, and Indigenous defenders of nature often face fierce resistance. According to one report, 200 environmental defenders were killed in 2020; 24 died in Mexico. “
Could something similar be the proximate cause of the sink hole in Oxford NS. Does the fruit and vegetable processing there use ground water resources? I never heard if this was ever an issue questioned by media. But geology would the main facilitator of the phenomenon CBCNS
Thought that was a bunker at the Old Course!
The same thing happened in Chile 🙃
It identifies as a Cenote
rexNW