The mayor of a Mexican municipality near the US border has accused a brewery owned by US firm Constellation Brands of draining local water supplies, leaving residents without enough water for basic needs. Mayor Leoncio Martínez Sánchez of Zaragoza, Coahuila, wrote to state governor Rubén Moreira stating that the town has no water for human consumption due to the brewery's extraction of 1,200 litres of water per second from deep wells.
Martínez told the Guardian that water shortages are so severe that there is barely a drop when taps are opened. The brewery, located in the neighbouring municipality of Nava, produces Corona and Modelo beers for export to the United States. Constellation Brands bought the plant in 2013 and announced a $2.27bn investment to expand capacity to 20 million bottles per day by the end of 2017.
The mayor expressed concern that planned production increases would worsen the situation, especially with federal plans for fracking in northern Mexico. He noted that while the brewery has industrial amounts of water, Zaragoza lacks even 100 litres per second for residents. The brewery's spokesman, César Isidro Muñoz, dismissed the claims, stating that Zaragoza would have water problems regardless and that the local aquifer is recharged at a rate exceeding withdrawals.
The Coahuila state government has downplayed the crisis, saying shortages affect only two neighbourhoods and that water delivery is a municipal responsibility. Raúl Pacheco-Vega, a public administration professor, noted that northern Mexico is naturally dry and water scarcity is common, but criticised the privatisation of water resources under the premise of job creation.
