López Obrador supervises works on the El Zapotillo dam

From the Writing

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, September 12, 2022, p. 4

When making a tour to supervise the resumption of works on the El Zapotillo dam -stopped for 10 years-, in Jalisco, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrated that a technical alternative could be found that will allow increasing up to 3 thousand liters of water per second and, in parallel, prevent the flooding of three communities in that entity: Acasico, Temacapulín and Palmarejo.

In a video that he published on his social networks, the president was accompanied by the Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López; the governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro; the person in charge of the justice plan, Claudia Gómez Godoy, and the head of the National Water Commission (Conagua), Germán Martínez Santoyo.

The latter explained that for this year there is already an investment of one thousand 800 million pesos for the construction of an aqueduct to Guadalajara. This will allow increasing the supply of the liquid up to one cubic meter per second by the third quarter of 2023.

Upon completion of construction, by the end of that year, the flow into the city is expected to reach 3 cubic meters (3,000 liters) per second.

Martínez Santoyo explained that the work remained stopped for 10 years, but agreements were reached with the communities that were going to be affected to analyze options to the original project, which was planning to flood them. Coordinated work was done to find a technical alternative and resume the work that in 2023 will connect the El Zapotillo dam with an aqueduct.

He stressed that the project contemplates three stages of construction and will include, it was reported in the video, mitigation works for these communities due to the damages that they have suffered with this work before reaching the agreements.

On his occasion, Alfaro thanked the presidential disposition to unlock an issue that had been debated for 40 years. He stressed that the work as a whole will involve resources of 6 billion pesos, of which the corresponding amount is already scheduled for next year.

Without a doubt, said the governor, the decision that led to agreements with the communities to solve a historical problem without affecting them is a success.

During the video, López Obrador stressed that he works with the principle that a given order that is not supervised, is of no usewhich is why he took advantage of his tour of the entity to verify the progress in the resumption of construction.