“You have been invited to the march against the construction of the Novillo dam”. This is what I read in my Facebook page and I was amazed to see that they were around 8,000 confirmed people to assist in the city of Obregon, Sonora to march against this cause. And I have heard a lot about “El Novillo” but I had never been interested until I saw this event on my favorite website.
I started to research deeper and I found out several interesting things. The main problem here is, obviously, water scarcity. We know that we’re running out of water in Hermosillo and the authorities have been searching for new methods to obtain it, coming up with the idea of constructing a channel that will allow us to have the water that’s stored in the Novillo dam. But what does this imply? There are supporters and critics of this strategy but the facts are being mixed up. There are two opposite versions of the story, so I’ll just narrate both of them and later make a judgment.
People from Hermosillo support this plan, arguing that the Novillo water is being wasted. With statistics they say that the water wasted in the Novillo dam in one year, would be enough to satisfy the Hermosillo needs for 15 years! Could this be possible?
On the other hand, people that enjoy the privileges of the Novillo dam don’t want to give up their water. They say that their water isn’t wasted, that it goes to the Ochiviachic dam and it’s later used to irrigate some parcels. They also say that it will be more expensive to convert the Novillo water into potable water than the Abelardo L. Rodriguez’s water. They suggest desalinization as the proper way of getting out of this issue.
Honestly, I don’t know what to believe. At the beginning I had only heard the first version of the story and was convinced that the Novillo dam should be constructed because desalinization is pretty expensive and our government can’t afford it, in fact, I don’t think that any country in the world is starting to see desalinization as a feasible method because of the cost it implies. However, later I saw that on my Facebook, and some complains that powerful people wrote in the renamed newspapers of Sonora, and I realized that maybe they had a point, that it would be unfair for them to take away their water.
I can’t be sure of what the statistics are. I don’t know what the real numbers are because nowadays the Internet and every media are able to manipulate information. All I can say is that we desperately need water and that the authorities that have under their concern the whole state, can’t be focusing only in one city and leaving the other unprotected. I think they must have measured the marginal benefits and marginal costs of this operation and that they found equilibrium. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be supporting this idea. So I’m mostly inclined for the construction, but I hope that the media will give clear and real information, and not one sprinkled by the opinions of the opposite parts.
I started to research deeper and I found out several interesting things. The main problem here is, obviously, water scarcity. We know that we’re running out of water in Hermosillo and the authorities have been searching for new methods to obtain it, coming up with the idea of constructing a channel that will allow us to have the water that’s stored in the Novillo dam. But what does this imply? There are supporters and critics of this strategy but the facts are being mixed up. There are two opposite versions of the story, so I’ll just narrate both of them and later make a judgment.
People from Hermosillo support this plan, arguing that the Novillo water is being wasted. With statistics they say that the water wasted in the Novillo dam in one year, would be enough to satisfy the Hermosillo needs for 15 years! Could this be possible?
On the other hand, people that enjoy the privileges of the Novillo dam don’t want to give up their water. They say that their water isn’t wasted, that it goes to the Ochiviachic dam and it’s later used to irrigate some parcels. They also say that it will be more expensive to convert the Novillo water into potable water than the Abelardo L. Rodriguez’s water. They suggest desalinization as the proper way of getting out of this issue.
Honestly, I don’t know what to believe. At the beginning I had only heard the first version of the story and was convinced that the Novillo dam should be constructed because desalinization is pretty expensive and our government can’t afford it, in fact, I don’t think that any country in the world is starting to see desalinization as a feasible method because of the cost it implies. However, later I saw that on my Facebook, and some complains that powerful people wrote in the renamed newspapers of Sonora, and I realized that maybe they had a point, that it would be unfair for them to take away their water.
I can’t be sure of what the statistics are. I don’t know what the real numbers are because nowadays the Internet and every media are able to manipulate information. All I can say is that we desperately need water and that the authorities that have under their concern the whole state, can’t be focusing only in one city and leaving the other unprotected. I think they must have measured the marginal benefits and marginal costs of this operation and that they found equilibrium. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be supporting this idea. So I’m mostly inclined for the construction, but I hope that the media will give clear and real information, and not one sprinkled by the opinions of the opposite parts.
