The Magdalena River in southern Mexico City

Home to over 21 million people, Mexico City is the largest urban area in the Western Hemisphere. While its smog is world famous, its haphazard expansion has led to another environmental issue; it’s water system can’t cope. We sent Earth Beat correspondent Shannon Young to the city to look into the issues behind its those water problems.

[dewplayer:http://www.southnotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/EarthBeat_MexicoCityWater.mp3]

Live stand up next to river: “I’m standing along a stretch of the Magdalena River that comes through Mexico City proper. And at this point, it is a grey/green/brown mass of relatively viscous liquid. And there’s a small cascade here. It consists of a concrete block with broken tree branches and lots of garbage. I see a bottle of bleach, a rusty can of spray paint, lots of shredded tatters of plastic bags, some broken styrofoam plates, pieces of clothes…and it’s all really stinky.” (fade under river tone)

The Rio Magdalena is the only river considered to have any life within the limits of Mexico City. It originates in a forested area in the mountains west of the city, but is a putrid mess by the time it reaches the city’s southern edge.

Nearly all of the other rivers that used to exist in the city have since become vehicles for transporting sewage out of the metropolitan area.

Continue Reading

(Report originally produced for The World and available for download here)

A gabion along a creek traps soil rushing downhill

Residents of the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca are still digging out from a rash of late summer landslides. The disasters killed dozens of people, destroyed homes and blocked rural highways. The landslides were blamed on unusually heavy rains and bad mountain roads… but deforestation and poor agricultural practices have made erosion a chronic problem in the region. Now some local residents are trying to address the problem by experimenting with low-tech traditional practices. Shannon Young reports.

[dewplayer:http://media.theworld.org/audio/102020107.mp3]

REPORTER: Back-to-back storms have drenched Oaxaca and three neighboring states in this busy hurricane season. Much of this rain has hit remote mountainous regions that are already prone to landslides . Storm-related damage to roads has left some towns unreachable by car for weeks.

Forest management consultant Jose Rodriguez says the Mexican government hasn’t provided much help in cleaning up, so the task has largely fallen to unpaid locals with their own shovels.

Continue Reading

Six Mexican farmers opposed to the construction of a dam were gunned down over the weekend on their way home from a protest.

The victims belonged to a movement of small farmers displaced by the Picachos Dam project in the state of Sinaloa. They had marched to the state capital, erected a protest encampment inside the state legislature and were on their way home when their pickup truck was riddled with bullets. All six passengers were killed.

According to police, the farmers’ pickup got caught in the crossfire of a shootout between two convoys of criminals. Three other bodies were also found along the highway murder scene.

The farmers’ movement has been carrying out a series of protests for more than a year now, demanding the government pay a fair price for their expropriated land. They have faced evictions, beatings, tear gassings, and arrests by state and federal police.

Some of those displaced by the Picachos Dam marched through the state capital of Culiacán yesterday, accusing the state government of having a hand in the murders.