YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico – More than a decade after a court ruling that an aqueduct violated the Yaqui tribe’s rights, the Mexican government has done nothing in response, say locals.

The Independencia Aqueduct, which supplies water to several cities in the state of Sonora, is one of several projects the government has constructed along the Yaqui River’s course. The aqueduct transfers around 60 million cubic meters (2.1 billion cubic feet) of water from the El Novillo Dam in the municipality of San José de Gracia, outside the tribe’s territory in the upper Yaqui River, to the nearby city of Hermosillo.

The Yaqui people have long struggled to preserve the Yaqui River, which is sacred to the Indigenous tribe and has been drained of all its waters in their territory after decades of overexploitation, unequal water distribution and droughts. For years, the Mexican government has tried to take greater control of the river by constructing dams and aqueducts that restrict its flow, with the first being the Lázaro Cárdenas (La Angostura) Dam in 1943.

Mario Luna Romero, a Yaqui water defender and spokesperson for the tribe, told Mongabay that the 172-kilometer (107-mile) aqueduct was approved in 2010 without the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the affected Yaqui tribe, even though the project would affect their water supply.

“The real impacts of the project were never really evaluated,” Ursula Garzón Aragón, an environmental lawyer from the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), told Mongabay over a phone call. “Not just the environmental [impacts] but, in this case, what it means to take away the water of an entire village.”

An ignored court ruling

In 2011, some members of the Yaqui traditional authority filed an lawsuit, demanding a full environmental impact assessment and a legitimate consultation process. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which issued a ruling in August 2013 that the aqueduct was a violation of the tribe’s rights.

However, it did not order the immediate suspension of the project. It instead ruled that it would be stopped subject to evidence that it would cause irreparable damage to the community.

“They put the burden on us to prove that it affects us,” Luna said. “We decided that the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the INAH, would do an expert report to see if there was any impact on the tribe due to the operation of the aqueduct.”

In 2015, anthropologists concluded that “the massive extraction of water from the Yaqui River and the drying out of a large part of its historical channel will affect important aspects of tradition, rituality and daily life.” The study, which was seen by Mongabay, recommended the “elimination, cancellation or closure of the aqueduct,” and to instead “[look] for other options to address the water needs.”

José Luis Moctezuma, one of the anthropologists who was involved in the study, told Mongabay that when they presented the study to federal authorities, including the National Water Commission (CONAGUA), they ignored it. 

The federal environmental agency (SEMARNAT) and CONAGUA did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment before the time of publication.

The construction of the aqueduct was completed and inaugurated in 2012, but it did not begin operations until a year later. Today, Luna said the water no longer flows freely through the river, unless the dam is full due to heavy rains.

Promises not kept

Francisco Javier López Bárcenas, a research professor at the College of San Luis A.C., told Mongabay that “in addition to not being consulted,” the Yaqui community has been “deprived of the little water they had access to,” which goes against the promises made by former President of Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas del Río.

In 1937 and 1940, President Cárdenas issued a decree to restore parts of the Yaqui tribe’s irrigation lands, pastures, mountains and hills that had been taken from them and granted them the right to 50% of the water collected in the La Angostura Dam. However, this right has not been respected, López said.

The Independencia Aqueduct was not the first megaproject that was approved without the consent of the Yaqui tribe. According to Luna, “none of the dams that were built were done with the tribe’s consent.”

In an official document seen by Mongabay, CONAGUA stated that various projects constructed on the Yaqui River, including the El Novillo and Oviáchic dams, prevented the restitution of rights granted to the Yaqui peoples in 1937 and 1940. It also stated that other users of the irrigation district were favored over the Yaqui peoples, which resulted in the depletion of the tribe’s waters.   

Given the extreme drought and water shortages experienced earlier this year, Omar Alberto Guillén Partida, the national secretary of the Peasant Alliance of the Northwest, told local newspaper El Sol del Hermosillo, “it is time to turn off the pumps of the Independencia Aqueduct, because the situation is critical.”

Banner image: Behind Mario Luna Romero, a Yaqui spokesperson and water defender is the Plutarco Elías Calles (El Novillo) on the left and the Independencia Aqueduct on the right. Image by Abimael Ochoa Hernández.

As drought parches Mexico, a Yaqui water defender fights for a sacred river

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