By Daniel Peyret
With last year’s water crisis in Nuevo León and with the recent arrival of Tesla in the same state, the question arises as to whether Mexico has enough water resources to face the challenge of continuing to receive large foreign investments, especially in these times when Mexico is benefiting from the nearshoring phenomenon.
We all know that due to infrastructure, labor, and proximity to the United States, foreign companies are seeking to reach the center and north of the country, but these are precisely the areas where we suffer the most water stress, which is worsening year after year. Fortunately, according to experts, the technologies for recycling water are sufficient so that in the future, this will not become an impediment to attract investment.
But given the industrial development of our country and its complexity, the solution is honestly not as simple as recycling water. There are challenges that our country faces for the use of this resource in the industrial sector.
As a first challenge: Is there water available?
Within the industrial activities in different regions of the country, water has become a determining factor for the operation and functioning of companies and for the attraction of new investments. This is already a risk factor.
The availability of water for production is a central issue for the installation of new plants in the north and center of the country. Developments in urban areas require large volumes of water for the population, and added to the needs of industry and commerce, it is impossible to meet the demands.
Industrial parks did not consider rainwater collection and reuse systems in their design and construction. Upgrading company facilities with that vision can be very expensive.
Second challenge: What about the water and its discharge?
The problem must be evaluated from different dimensions: a company, an industrial park, an industrial corridor. The water discharge generated by a single production unit, or hundreds of companies within industrial complexes, add up to a serious problem.
It is hard to believe that there are industrial parks in Mexico, significant investments that do not have wastewater treatment systems. Their system is not updated, nor was their infrastructure designed to serve their current customers due to the diversity of activities that are carried out.
A shared responsibility lies between companies and industrial parks that are generating serious problems in their surroundings. The mismanagement of wastewater discharges by companies and parks undoubtedly generates processes of systematic contamination of soils, bodies of water, and air. The most serious may be the impact on the eco-hydrological systems around industrial sites. In other words, we are facing not only a challenge of environmental impact, but also a social problem and, above all, a serious problem affecting the health of the communities or human settlements around this type of development.
A company, an industrial park, an industrial corridor … What dimension do we want to give to these challenges or problems? Clean industry?
The availability and treatment of water is a strategic element in development. The generation of jobs and economic development cannot in any way justify the damaging of ecosystems and communities.
The government in its different areas of competence, real estate developers, and industrial park administrations must contribute to update or develop conscious infrastructures that provide certainty, and, above all, that respond to the urgent need not to further affect the environment, communities, and, most important, the health of the people who live and develop around their sites.
