On the dusty trail of Sonora's water millionaires

A view of Hermosillo from the Cerro de la Campana in 2022. Photo © Dawn Marie Paley.

Opinion • Ramon I. Centeno • June 14, 2024 • Leer en castellano

Mexico has a problem that is rarely discussed but that affects people in towns and cities across the country: the scourge of water millionaires.

“Water millionaires” are private users with concessions for one million cubic meters or more of water per year, according to Wilfrido A. Gómez-Arias and Andrea Moctezuma, who have done groundbreaking research on the issue. In Mexico, water millionaires control almost a quarter of all water available for consumption. In Sonora, a northern state that shares its name with one of the largest and hottest deserts on the planet, they monopolize 69 percent of available water.

In Hermosillo, the state capital, these groups have so much power that they have been able to build an enormous agro-industrial complex in the desert, which they sustain with water extracted from the Yaqui River, located in the mountains far from the city. Hermosillo has a population of 970,000 and a supply of 570 million cubic meters of concessioned water per year, which means that there should be no shortages. 

But Hermosillo has long been unable to meet its water demand from wells and the river that runs through it and from which the state derives its name. The city's inhabitants suffer water shortages, while agribusinesses have a guaranteed supply. The issue of water scarcity is one of the most common topics of conversation in the city, especially in the summer, when temperatures can exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Just days ago, Hermosillo hit the hottest temperature ever recorded in the city: 49.5 degrees Celsius (121.1 degrees Fahrenheit). Water is life, and nowhere is that truer than in the desert, where water inequality is exacerbated.

Today, agribusiness controls 79 percent of Hermosillo's water, which is how the capital's water millionaires make their fortunes. The University of Sonora’s Patty Boijseauneau has identified 31 groups—including business conglomerates, families and individuals—that monopolize 68 percent of the municipality's water. 

Hermosillo stretches to the Pacific coast, which is where the agricultural oligarchy earns millions by growing vegetables and fruits, including grapes, melon, watermelon and papaya. In fact, this produce subsidizes water use in states like California and Arizona, where Sonoran agricultural products sold at cheap prices without US farmers having to use a single drop of water. 

Among the 31 water millionaires in Hermosillo, one particularly hard to trace group of medium and large businessmen stands out: the Association of Users of Irrigation District 51 of the Hermosillo Coast, better known as ASUDIR 051. This group alone accounts for more than half of all water concessioned in the municipality. By contrast, Agua de Hermosillo, the public water utility that supplies the capital's households, has 78 million cubic meters, or 13 percent of all water available in the municipality. 

To address the water shortage for Hermosillo residents, authorities built the controversial Independence Aqueduct in 2013. This 150 kilometer aqueduct brings water to the capital from the El Novillo Dam, which was created to store water from the Yaqui River and to supply Obregon City and the Yaqui people. 

The economic development of southern Sonora was shelved for the benefit of powerful agribusiness interests in Hermosillo, whose domination of the water supply condemns others to go without. The Independece Aqueduct was built despite protests by Yaqui people and Obregón residents. And even so, there is still a lack of water in the capital.

Wellbeing without water?

Government propagandists claim that Mexico has emerged from the darkness and entered a new era of wellbeing. The reality is less inspiring: neoliberalism continues, and has even been expanded in some respects. Mexico’s ruling party continues to protect and reproduce neoliberalism, but since 2018, it has denied its role in doing so. The gap between what the government says and what it does has widened under the Morena party.

And with regards to water, the same problems remain. 

Neoliberalization produced Mexico’s water millionaires and their privileges are intact. The water concessions that they enjoy are a form of de facto privatization. Legally, the nation owns the water that they control, but in practice the water millionaires are the lords and masters of the vital liquid. This all occurs in broad daylight and in full view of everyone. It might be better to call them hydro-caciques.

A cacique controls a resource; while a member of the bourgeoisie is its legitimate owner in the eyes of the law. The boundary that separates one from the other can be fuzzy. In Mexico, for example, no individual can legally own water, oil, or mines. 

According to the Constitution, the Mexican people own the country’s water and mining resources and can only “grant” their use to a private party. However, especially in cities such as Cananea or Nacozari (both in Sonora), everyone knows that copper mines have owners, such as the mega conglomerate Grupo Mexico. In the case of the mining industry, the "concession" regime is nothing more than a bureaucratic smoke screen.

So it is with water, in which the concession regime has created millionaires, who are caciques that have become bourgeois and inserted themselves into international markets.