After a seven-month silence, former president Enrique Peña Nieto reappeared on social media on Wednesday but not to refute the corruption allegations that have been made against him.
The ex-president instead offered condolences to his successor, whose 56-year-old sister passed away this morning.
“I express my heartfelt condolences to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his family for the passing of Professor Candelaria Beatriz López Obrador. Rest in peace,” Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter.
It was just the third tweet this year from the ex-president who left office just under two years ago and vanished from public life.
On April 15 Peña Nieto offered his condolences after the death of former México state governor Ignacio Pichardo Pagaza and he did the same on April 1 after his communications and transportation minister, Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, passed away.
Before those tweets, the former president’s most recent social media remark was in June last year when he rejected a newspaper report that claimed that he was under investigation by United States authorities in relation to a bribery case involving the state oil company Pemex.
In more recent times, Peña Nieto has remained silent on social media despite the arrest – and subsequent release – of his defense minister, Salvador Cienfuegos, on drug trafficking charges, and the publication of details of a document in which the federal Attorney General’s Office alleges that he led and personally benefited from a criminal scheme within his government that paid bribes to lawmakers and committed treason.
It appears that the 54-year-old ex-president, who reportedly lives in an exclusive residential area near Madrid, Spain, is more focused on his love life than speaking online about the scandals that plagued his 2012-2018 presidency.
Peña Nieto announced on Facebook in May 2019 that his marriage to actress and singer Angélica Rivera had “legally concluded.” He is now in a relationship with 33-year-old Mexican model Tania Ruiz.
Ruiz, who is much more active on social media than her partner, took to Instagram last week to show that all is well in her relationship with the erstwhile leader.
In the “stories” section of her account, she posted a series of photos accompanied by phrases such as “Forever and ever!! My Love!!” and “Loving you today and if God wishes always.”
Some of the photos showed Ruiz’s hand – with a ring on her middle finger – clasping what is believed to be the hand of Peña Nieto. It appeared that an engagement announcement could be imminent but in her last “story,” Ruiz said that a wedding was not about to happen.
“I’m not getting married, I’m just very happy. I love my boyfriend!!” she wrote.
Her romantic posts may have been an attempt to cheer up Peña Nieto – they were published the same day as the Attorney General’s Office’s allegations against him were made public.
Despite accusations of wrongdoing, the former president is not currently sought by Mexican authorities but that could change should a majority of citizens vote in favor of putting ex-presidents on trial at a referendum planned for next year.
How can the mexicanidad — Mexicanness — of a car made in Mexico but designed in Germany be increased? By covering it in Mexican indigenous art, of course.
The Volkswagen beetle was designed and first made in Germany but is nevertheless considered a Mexican icon because millions of the vehicles were made at the automaker’s Puebla factory until production ceased last year.
Nine years before the last Beetle rolled off the production line, a group of eight Wixáritari, or Huichol, artisans from two families worked painstakingly for eight months to cover the exterior of a 1990 vocho, as the car is known in Mexico, with more than 2 million colorful glass beads and thus create a unique piece of vehicular art.
After thousands of hours of work the vochol – a portmanteau of the words vocho and Huichol – was born.
The more than 2 million beads, approximately 2,277,000 to be more precise, together depict geometric patterns as well as animals and other aspects of the natural world.
More than 2 million glass beads were used for the design.
They include snakes on the hood and deer, scorpions, birds and peyote flowers on the car’s sides. All are considered important symbols in Huichol culture and spirituality.
There is also a sun on the roof, which symbolizes the union between humans and gods, and four two-headed eagles that offer protection to the vehicle’s passengers. On the vochol’s rear is an image of shaman steering a canoe.
The phrases “200 years of independence” and “100 years since the Mexican Revolution” appear in the Huichol language on the fenders of the vochol, whose creation was sponsored by several public and private organizations including the Jalisco Ministry of Culture and the Nayarit Culture and Art Council.
The Huichol people are native to and continue to live in those two states as well as parts of Zacatecas and Durango.
Parts of the interior of the vochol including the seats and steering wheel are also covered in the intricate beadwork for which the indigenous people are well known.
The bead-adorned Beetle is perhaps the largest piece of Huichol beadwork art ever produced. It was first put on display at a museum in Guadalajara before being exhibited in numerous countries around the world.
It could be the largest piece of Huichol beadwork art ever produced.
When it is not on loan, the vochol can be admired at the Museum of Popular Art in Mexico City’s historic center.
When this new 1,000-peso bill is issued later this year it will be one of only two Mexican bills in circulation to feature women.
When I saw a new 200-peso bill begin to circulate without Sor Juana on it last year, I was crestfallen. Hidalgo and Morelos are cool and all; don’t get me wrong.
But after getting rid of the second-to-last woman on any Mexican bill — the artist Frida Kahlo had been featured on the back of the 500-peso bill, but that was changed in 2018 — they got rid of Sor Juana too? Not cool, Bank of México.
I decided to do some reading to find out what had happened, and discovered that Mexico had decided to move her to the 100-peso bill instead … but not until the following year.
“Well,” I thought, “at least she’s coming back.” Even so, I was nervous that the future plan would somehow get lost in the shuffle and we’d end up with an all-male cast on Mexican bills.
Fortunately, she has returned!
One thing I love about Sor Juana is that she’s such a respected figure in Mexican history that, as a woman, falls outside two of the most pervasive female archetypes in Mexican culture: she’s neither “la virgen,” the all-sacrificing and all-suffering perfect mother, nor “la malinche,” the ultimate disloyal woman who betrayed her people by fighting for the other side.
These are, of course, simplistic descriptions, but that’s just the nature of archetypes: they’re cultural shorthand.
No, Sor Juana was, quite simply, a badass. She was a writer, a philosopher, a feminist, a genius. I often wonder if she really wanted to be a nun or if she simply saw it as the safest option to pursue her intellectual interest without men who felt threatened by her accusing her of witchcraft. Actually, I don’t wonder; she made it very clear that she intended to be a nun so that she could study.
Might we work at creating another archetype for Mexican women in her likeness? I can think of five women right off the bat I know personally that would fit into that mold perfectly.
Anyway, back to women on bills.
All this is not to criticize. My own country, the United States, has had woefully few women featured on its own currency, and when they have appeared, it’s nearly always been on “commemorative coins” with the exception of Pocahontas on the back of $20 bills in 1865 and Martha Washington appearing briefly on $1 “silver certificates” in 1886. Harriet Tubman was supposed to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill by 2020, but that was postponed until 2030.
I don’t know about you all, but the last time I went to the U.S. I didn’t use cash for a single thing. By the time 2030 rolls around, I’m betting our neighbors to the north will have to explain to children what bills actually are. I still hope that Tubman makes it onto the $20 bill, but it feels a little like showing up to a party after nearly everyone has left.
But in Mexico, cash is still king, and plenty of places that I frequent don’t take cards at all. As a result, I see Mexicans bills quite a lot and love seeing the beautiful new designs when they come out. It just would be nice to see a few more women on there, that’s all.
Here’s a bright spot: the Revolution-era feminist Hermila Galindo and revolutionary Carmen Serdán will appear with Francisco I. Madero on the 1,000-peso bill sometime this year. This is great news! It would be even better news if I actually ever get to see a 1,000-peso bill; I’ve been here for almost 20 years and never have! But you take what you can get, am I right?
Another upcoming bill change I’m excited about that I will definitely get to see is an “all-nature” one: the new 50-peso bill will not feature any major figures but rather the famed axolotl (a salamander native to the lakes of Xochimilco).
I haven’t been able to find an image of what will go on the reverse side, but it’s said to commemorate the founding of Tenochtitlán, so I have my suspicions.
So I’m glad Sor Juana is back, but if a salamander can make it onto legal tender, how about some more women too? The only other woman who’s appeared on Mexican peso bills in recent history is Josefa Ortiz, a.k.a. “La Corregidora,” who hasn’t been seen since the 1990s. Why not bring her back? Heck, why not bring them both back and add some more?
As you may have guessed by now, I have some more suggestions for future bills. I was not asked for any, but I’ve got some anyway! Here they are:
Elena Poniatowska, one of the most important Mexican journalists and authors of the 20th century would be an excellent choice. True, she was born in France, but she worked and lived (still lives, actually) in Mexico throughout her adult life and is a Mexican citizen.
Or how about Tessy María López Goerne, nominee for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, who has overcome health scares that would knock most of us out completely and keeps on being brilliant? Silvia Torres-Peimbert, the first Mexican woman to receive a doctorate in astronomy and former president of the International Astronomical Union would also be an excellent choice.
There are, of course, many other great choices, and I’d love to see Mexico take the lead worldwide on this one. Let’s give the guys a break.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.
This Mustang is among 188 cars that will be auctioned.
A 1965 Ford Mustang will be among almost 300 lots on the block at the government’s next auction of assets seized from organized crime.
The Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People (Indep) announced Tuesday that 288 lots will be up for grabs at the ninth “narco-auction,” which will be held in Mexico City on Sunday at Los Pinos, the former official residence of the president.
A total of 188 cars, including several classic cars, will go under the hammer as will six speedboats, trucks and forklifts among other seized assets.
The combined starting price for the lots is just over 13 million pesos (US $642,000). Proceeds of the auction will go toward funding the government’s social programs.
In addition to the Mustang, which has a starting price of just under 330,000 pesos (US $16,300), other notable vehicles to be auctioned include a 2016 GM Sierra Denali pickup truck and a 2014 Ford F-150 pickup. Both vehicles have a starting price of about 250,000 pesos (US $12,400).
A full list of the assets to be auctioned off is available on the Indep website (Spanish only). Entry to the auction will be limited to 150 people to ensure that social distancing recommendations can be observed.
All people who wish to attend must register by November 20. There will be no opportunities to bid for assets by telephone.
The government has already auctioned off a wide range of assets seized from organized crime including jewelry, boats, luxury vehicles, airplanes and real estate.
The former home of famed Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes was sold in May, while a mansion owned by accused drug trafficker Zhenli Ye Gon was purchased at an auction last year.
Indep has distributed millions of pesos in auction proceeds to other government departments since it was created by the federal government last year.
But the fledgling institute is apparently not squeaky clean. Announcing his resignation as Indep chief in a letter to President López Obrador in September, Jaime Cárdenas said that the institute is plagued by corruption, asserting that officials stole jewelry in the agency’s possession and manipulated the auctions it held.
Relatives of missing persons in Acapulco began their eighth search on Tuesday for loved ones’ remains in the Alta Cuauhtémoc neighborhood, this time finding human bones in El Veladero National Park.
It brings to a total of 83 bodies found in makeshift graves all around the port city this year by the Families of the Disappeared and Murdered Collective. President Guadalupe Rodríguez said the search and recovery operation, like the other seven, was undertaken without official assistance.
“No one has looked for our disappeared relatives, and the highest levels of the federal government have made us give up all hope of finding them. They have all the information they need, but to date they have not dealt with the families, and we so cannot identify [our loved ones],” Rodríguez said.
She said nothing has been done with genetic samples the families have supplied to authorities for uploading to a database in order that DNA of discovered remains can be matched to the missing.
The relatives are basically on their own, she said, which has been the same experience reported by other, similar search collectives around the country.
“They halted the roundtable meetings with our federal prosecutor’s office to review the progress of all the investigations,” she said. “They also stopped assistance to help the orphaned children [of the disappeared], who are dying of hunger.”
In addition, she said, the group had meetings scheduled for November 25 with the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEAV) and the Minister of the Interior, but they had been canceled without explanation.
In the past, Rodríguez said, relatives would have been helped financially with the costs of travel to the digging sites and with transport of the remains, but that source dried up when the government eliminated more than 100 public trusts last month.
She did acknowledge that the group had been informed that members would receive financial support from the Federal Tax Administration (SAT) but the families did not have any sense of when that money would be forthcoming.
Aid is delivered by boat to flood victims in Tabasco.
Civil Protection authorities estimate that about 900,000 people have been affected by flooding in Tabasco, a figure significantly higher than previously thought.
The affected citizens live in 1,305 communities across the state, according to the Tabasco government.
Federal Civil Protection authorities said on the weekend that more than 300,000 people and 899 communities had been affected by flooding that was caused by rain brought by two cold fronts and a tropical storm and exacerbated by the release of water from the Peñitas dam in Chiapas. Severe flooding also affected parts of Tabasco last month.
The state government said in reports to lawmakers that they still don’t have an estimate of the economic damage the most recent flooding caused because no census or official damage assessment has yet been conducted.
However, the bill is likely to be in the tens of billions of pesos considering that comparable flooding in 2007 caused economic losses of some 33.2 billion pesos.
The director of the insurance company association AMIS said Tuesday that the majority of the people affected don’t have coverage for their homes, vehicles and small businesses.
“There is a lot of damage … but unfortunately a significant number of people don’t have insurance,” Recaredo Arias told a press conference.
He said that payouts were expected to be lower than in 2007 when insurance companies paid out US $407 million in Tabasco.
Arias said is was “sad” that the insurance sector can’t make a greater contribution to the recovery efforts because so many people don’t have coverage.
Meanwhile, five air force planes carrying 43.4 tonnes of supplies departed from the Mexico City airport on Wednesday morning to travel to Tabasco.
The army transported 65 tonnes of aid to the Gulf coast state by land on Tuesday, meaning that a total of 108.4 tonnes of supplies will be available for distribution to affected residents.
Families will be given food packages containing items such as rice, beans, canned tuna, flour, sugar, oil, tomato paste, pasta, cookies, coffee and powered milk.
Many Tabasco residents say that they have been abandoned by the authorities while large quantities of water inundate their communities and homes.
The decision – at odds with the president’s pledge to put the poor first – was criticized by residents of the low-lying areas of Tabasco to which the water was diverted.
Just over 50% of elementary school students say they are bored with the learning at home program initiated as a result of Covid-19 school closures.
A survey by the National Commission for the Continued Betterment of Education (Mejoredu), a federal agency, was administered in June to 194,00 elementary students, their parents and teachers. In total, 51.4% of respondents told the commission that students are finding distance education boring.
Depending on where in Mexico they live, k-12 students nationwide have been receiving lessons online, on public television, via radio or through some combination of the three formats since March. Some teachers have resorted to using phone-based social media platforms like WhatsApp to teach when students do not have access to the internet.
The survey also reported more serious issues with the distance education format in Mexico.
69.8% of respondents said students could not count on other family members for assistance with their lessons.
52.8% reported that the lessons being taught required supplemental materials that the students did not possess.
26.8% of teachers surveyed said the lessons and materials they were using were in a different language than their students speak.
20% said that students have not had any school textbooks since the Learn at Home program began.
Overall, said the commission, 46.3% of respondents also told them that in their opinion the Education Ministry’s Learn at Home curriculum was not adequate to allow students to continue advancing educationally.
A French design house is continuing to collaborate with Mexican artisans, connecting them with customers.
Louis Vuitton has connected artisans in Oaxaca with buyers who commissioned them to paint their traditional Zapotec designs on Vuitton hard-sided trunks.
The result is “Power Animals,” a series of Vuitton trunks featuring painted animals inspired by the Zapotec calendar.
Like French fashion designer Isabel Marant, who recently apologized for incorporating indigenous designs into her newest clothing collection, the legendary design house has also had to deal with accusations by Mexico of cultural appropriation.
Louis Vuitton himself was questioned in July 2019 by the Ministry of Culture when embroidery on chairs by the designer bore a resemblance to patterns from Tenango de Doria, Hidalgo. The ministry wanted to know if the company had an arrangement with artisans there, and although Vuitton stated that that was the case, the chairs were taken off the market anyway.
‘Power Animals’ puts artisans in direct contact with clients.
In 2020, the designer has tried to revamp its relationship with Mexican indigenous creators, choosing instead to give credit to the artisans. “Power Animals” is putting artisans in direct contact with clients the company has solicited for them.
In February, the designer unveiled a collection entitled The Colorful Journey LV, which included six Vuitton travel trunks with different artisan designs, painted by the small workshop Taller Casa Don Juan in the community of San Martín Tilcajete and displayed during the Zona Maco art and design event this year in Mexico City.
Vuitton engaged the painters to illustrate likenesses of the state’s signature animal figurines, often called Oaxacan alebrijes.
Whereas the February event was a static exhibit, the newest trunks were created in real time in front of Vuitton customers, who the company brought as a group to the same Oaxacan workshop featured in the February exhibit. At the latest event, Vuitton clients met the artisans who painted their trunks and were able to communicate with them about the nature of the painting.
“In keeping with fair trade practices and out of respect for the art and its creators, the client and the master artisan have an open dialogue about the creation process,” the designer explained to potential clients on its website.
The event was done in accordance with Mexican copyright law and the Law for Safeguarding Knowledge, Identity and Culture of Indigenous Communities, the company said.
Vuitton sells the trunks to its clients but does not see any money from the artisan’s work: the clients paid the artisans directly at the event.
The fanciful paintings included coyotes, geckos, turtles, armadillos, rabbits, butterflies, hummingbirds, and several other animals. The company plans to highlight more of the artisans’ works soon at the Louis Vuitton store in the Palacio de Hierro mall in Mexico City, it said.
Former army chief Salvador Cienfuegos will return to Mexico.
A month after former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos was arrested on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, United States and Mexican authorities announced Tuesday that the U.S. Justice Department was seeking dismissal of the charges so that the ex-army chief could be investigated in Mexico.
A federal judge in New York agreed to the request to drop the charges on Wednesday morning, saying there was no evidence or suspicion that Mexico won’t conduct an investigation into Cienfuegos’ alleged crimes.
Announced in a joint statement by United States Attorney General William Bar and his Mexican counterpart Alejandro Gertz Manero, the decision to release Cienfuegos, defense minister in the 2012-2018 government led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto, is both extraordinary and unexpected given that U.S. authorities spent years building a case against the ex-military official and have previously shown little faith in the Mexican justice system.
“In recognition of the strong law enforcement partnership between Mexico and the United States, and in the interests of demonstrating our united front against all forms of criminality, the U.S. Department of Justice has made the decision to seek dismissal of the U.S. criminal charges against former [minister] Cienfuegos, so that he may be investigated and, if appropriate, charged, under Mexican law,” Barr and Gertz Manero said in the statement.
They also said that the U.S. Justice Department has provided evidence in the case to Mexico and “commits to continued cooperation … to support the investigation by Mexican authorities.”
The statement noted that the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR) opened its own investigation after learning of the charges against Cienfuegos but the Mexican government has not committed to trying the former defense minister even though U.S. prosecutors say that the evidence against him is “strong.”
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a press conference Tuesday that Cienfuegos would be returned to Mexico “as a Mexican citizen” and will not be facing any criminal charges. He stressed that the agreement allowing the the 72-year-old former army chief to be investigated in Mexico was not representative of impunity but rather “respect for Mexico and its armed forces.”
Ebrard said it will ultimately be up to the FGR to determine whether Cienfuegos will face trial. He said late last month that Mexico had expressed its “profound discontent” to the United States over not being informed about the plan to arrest the ex-official, and the federal government lobbied the United States to allow him to face justice here.
According to the U.S. indictment, Cienfuegos as defense minister helped the H-2 Cartel, a splinter group of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, operate in Mexico and ship drugs to the United States, and conspired to launder the money he obtained from his involvement in the illicit activities. The case against him was largely based on thousands of incriminating Blackberry smartphone messages intercepted by United States authorities.
The decision to release the former army chief and allow him to return to Mexico “appeared to be an attempt to repair a growing breach in relations over Cienfuegos’s arrest,” The Washington Post said.
Cienfuegos and his former boss, Enrique Peña Nieto.
The arrest of the former defense minister was deeply embarrassing for the Mexican government, which holds the military up as one of the country’s most trustworthy institutions. It upset a bilateral relationship that has been punctuated with episodes of acrimony since United States President Donald Trump took office in early 2017.
President López Obrador, who is relying on the military for a wide range of tasks including public security and infrastructure construction, suggested that Cienfuegos might have been arrested “for political or other reasons” and accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of “meddling” in Mexico’s affairs.
The Post reported that prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York attributed the decision to drop charges against Cienfuegos to the Mexican government’s threats to limit the role of the DEA in Mexico. The newspaper said that information came from a law enforcement official familiar with the case, adding that a Mexico official confirmed that the DEA could be barred from entering Mexico.
For their part, Barr and Gertz Manero said the United States and Mexico remain committed to “bilateral law enforcement cooperation.”
“As the decision today reflects, we are stronger when we work together and respect the sovereignty of our nations and their institutions. This close partnership increases the security of the citizens of both our countries.”
Alejandro Hope, a prominent Mexican security analyst, said that if the United States hadn’t agreed to drop the case against Cienfuegos, “the army would have held off on any kind of cooperation with the U.S. for a decade.”
Mike Vigil, a former DEA chief of international operations, said that the U.S. decision “is nothing more than a gift, a huge gift” from Trump to López Obrador. The two men have developed a warm relationship despite their ideological differences and the former’s history of aggressive and offensive rhetoric toward Mexico.
Vigil also said that “the chances of Cienfuegos being convicted in Mexico are slim to none,” adding that the U.S. decision “sends a very negative message to U.S. law enforcement agencies – that Donald Trump is willing to politically manipulate judicial proceedings.”
The decision represents a radical change of direction given that the United States government has sought to extradite Mexican drug traffickers and try them in its own courtrooms for decades because it believed that they would never be brought to justice in Mexico.
But the Trump administration is apparently willing to put that belief to one side in order not to upset the Mexican government – another radical shift given that the U.S. president is not known for his amiability toward Mexico.
In a filing asking a judge to dismiss the charges against Cienfuegos, U.S. prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration had come to the conclusion that preserving the relationship with Mexico was more important than pursuing the case.
“The United States has determined that sensitive and important foreign policy considerations outweigh the government’s interest in pursuing the prosecution of the defendant, under the totality of the circumstances, and therefore require dismissal of the case,” they wrote.
At his news conference on Wednesday morning, López Obrador asserted that there would be no impunity in the Cienfuegos case. He also said that Mexico had not committed to giving anything to the U.S. in exchange for it dropping the charges.
“There’s no exchange, we don’t establish commitments that affect our principles. … It doesn’t mean impunity, … an investigation has started, it started when they sent us the evidence,” López Obrador said.
He said the government expressed its anger to the United States about not being informed about the plan to arrest Cienfuegos because the U.S. violated a years-old agreement to provide such information.
The managing editor of InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime in Latin America, expressed doubt that Cienfuegos would be tried in a civilian court.
“[AMLO’s] prosecutors are going to have to weigh up what the evidence against Cienfuegos is and whether it is strong enough to warrant a very public trial, against the loyalty of the army and how much he wants to keep the army onside,” Chris Dalby said.
“Cienfuegos has a lot of friends in high places.”
It is also likely that Mexican courts will be unable to try Cienfuegos on much of the evidence collected by U.S. authorities.
The interception of the former defense minister’s telephone communications was not authorized by a Mexican judge and therefore the incriminating Blackberry messages were illegally obtained and will be inadmissible in court, wrote Carlos Marín, a columnist with the newspaper Milenio.
He also said the government could legally detain Cienfuegos in a military prison or place him under house arrest for up to 40 days while an investigation takes place. However, it appears more likely that he will be not be arrested upon arrival in Mexico.
The “possibility that Cienfuegos will remain free, at least for some time,” said The Washington Post, is “a symbol to some of the Mexican government’s ability to play hardball with the United States — and win.”
The Álvaro Obregón dam on the Yaqui River in Sonora was built in 1952.
The inspection frequency of Mexico’s dams doesn’t come close to meeting international standards.
Dams with structural problems or those that haven’t been properly maintained have the potential to leak and/or accidentally discharge large quantities of water that could pose a risk to human life, property and the environment.
The risk in Mexico is even greater because the National Water Commission (Conagua) only carries out about one-sixth the recommended number of dam inspections per year due to a lack of personnel and resources.
The International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the sharing of information and knowledge about the design, construction, maintenance, and impact of large dams, recommends that dams be thoroughly inspected at least every five years.
There are 6,256 dams in Mexico’s network, meaning that Conagua would have to complete about 1,250 inspections per year to comply.
But it only completes about 200 inspections annually due to a lack of specialized staff, the newspaper El Universal reported.
In other words, the state of 6,000 dams is unknown by Conagua in any given year and the condition of more than 5,000 is unknown over a five-year period.
Lack of money is another obstacle to complying. The federal government launched a dam assessment program to be managed by Conagua in 2010 but it hasn’t received any funding for years.
Another program known as K111 whose objective is to maintain and modernize dams – some of which were built in colonial times and the 19th century – is set to have its budget cut by almost a third next year. The program was allocated 465.9 million pesos (US $23 million) this year but is slated to receive just 320 million pesos in 2021, a 32.4% cut.
The fact that the recommended number of dam inspections are not being carried out is particularly concerning given that extreme weather events such as hurricanes are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
As a result, Mexico’s dams, especially those in the south and southeast of the country, are coming under intense pressure from torrential rains more frequently.
Conagua has acknowledged that the risk of dam malfunction due to severe weather events is “permanent.” It has also recognized that earthquakes, landslides and vandalism have damaged dams in Mexico.
But without the funding and personnel to inspect a greater number of dams, it is inevitable that some problems won’t be detected.
Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández has blamed much of the flooding on the excessive release of water from the Peñitas dam, which was recently inundated with rain brought by two cold fronts and Tropical Storm Eta.
He accused the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) of releasing the water from the dam, which is located on the Grijalva River in Chiapas and used to generate hydroelectric power.
But CFE chief Manuel Bartlett last week denied that the state-owned company is responsible for the flooding, saying that Mexico’s Committee of Large Dams – made up of Conagua officials and university academics – manages dam water.
