Tijuana Races to Repair Its Aqueduct

A ruptured aqueduct that had threatened water supplies to this city of more than a million residents should be repaired by early today and a reduced flow should be reaching the city hours later, authorities said Friday. A hookup with San Diego, across the U.S.-Mexican border, was helping fill the void.

“It’s still an emergency situation, but the level of concern has been reduced considerably,” said Miguel Ravelo, a spokesman for the state Public Service Commission.

However, Ravelo said that water supplies were not expected to return to normal until late Tuesday--after the Memorial Day weekend, a major time for tourism here--as the newly repaired aqueduct will have to be tested, filled, pressurized and sanitized. In the meantime, the city will continue to depend in part on other sources, including an emergency tie-in with San Diego water lines.

Despite emergency declarations, officials said drinking-water supplies were never threatened, as most residents here, as in much of Mexico, rely heavily on bottled drinking water purchased from private distributors. The water from the aqueduct, although nominally purified, is used largely for non-drinking uses, such as washing and sewage flow.

Few Complaints

Residents here, accustomed to breakdowns in the system, seem to take the lack of water with relatively few complaints. There was little evidence of panic or long lines at private water suppliers, although commercial sales of water were brisk.

Officials in this city of about 1.5 million residents, wary of losing tourist income, have been downplaying the potential impact of the water shortage on visitors, noting that many hotels and restaurants have their own holding tanks with reserve capacity, or have the option of purchasing water. Tens of thousands of Americans and other tourists traditionally head for Tijuana and points south during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The emergency began Wednesday morning, when an underground section of the giant aqueduct--about six feet in diameter--ruptured and began spilling water, prompting an eventual shutdown of the system. The aqueduct, which carries water from the Colorado River, supplies more than 90% of the city’s non-drinking needs.

Engineers from Mexico and the United States have been working non-stop to fix the breakage, and it is anticipated that the metal-reinforced concrete pipe will be completely repaired by about 3 a.m. Saturday, officials said.

Authorities called for conservation and opened a number of wells and several dozen state-owned trucks began distributing water, free of charge, to some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.

On Thursday, officials on both sides of the border arranged to reopen a hookup with the San Diego water system, which has been sending Tijuana as much as 13 million gallons a day--less than a third of that city’s average daily consumption but still a significant flow.

The trans-border hookup had previously been used to transport water to Tijuana, but was abandoned a decade ago when Mexican officials completed construction of a supply line from the Colorado River. The hookup will continue as long as needed, a San Diego official said.

The water-sharing caused San Diego officials to call for residents to adopt voluntary conservation measures, such as limiting watering and vehicle washing.