Up the twisting mountain road that follows the Río Sonora north from Hermosillo, Mexico, residents in the town of Banámichi worry the water that keeps their valley green could soon be diverted to the growing Sonoran capital.
A project to dam up Sonora’s rivers in three places would create a reservoir just about 10 miles upstream from Banámichi. Officials plan to channel some of that water away to Hermosillo. But at a recent community event, residents expressed fears that the dam will leave their stretch of river dry.
“They want to take this water to Hermosillo and what are we going to do?” said third-generation cattle rancher Francisco Maldonado. “We are going to be without water.”
The state’s governor says towns like Banámichi are a priority, emphasizing a need to secure rural areas’ long-term water supply even as the dams bring some water to Hermosillo. The capital of the desert state is growing rapidly, and as its population nears 1 million, it’s struggling to tap into a reliable water supply after a years-long drought. That has made the water that flows through the upper Río Sonora during the rainy season increasingly coveted.
The river’s water feeds the agricultural heartbeat of Banámichi, a small town more than 100 miles south of Cochise County. Tractors roll across green fields of alfalfa and garlic. Men on horseback in chaps and cowboy hats tend to cattle just off the highway.
But all over the state, long-term drought has meant that the aquifers underlying much of the region haven’t been able to recharge, said Universidad de Sonora atmospheric scientist Carlos Minjarez.
“We have been going through a hydrological drought for more than 10 or 15 years,” Minjarez said.
The lack of rain has left rivers running dry. Along much of the Río Sonora, vegetation grows in the empty riverbed.
The past two rainy seasons have been especially unproductive, leaving much of the Río Sonora even drier than usual this time of year. Those seasons have yielded just half of the water the area usually gets in the critical summer months when the rains usually come, Minjarez said. Minjarez and other climate experts predict that climate change will make weather events, like drought, more extreme for the next century.
Sonora’s governor, Alfonso Durazo, says officials are taking action before conditions get even worse. The dam project will secure water for the region for the long term, “on the horizon of 20, 30 years,” he told reporters recently.
“All the towns on the Río Sonora … are the priority. But so is water for the capital,” Durazo said.
Federal officials have also described the project — part of a national long-term water plan — primarily as a way to bring water to the capital, stoking concerns in Banámichi that rural areas will suffer. State and federal water officials declined to comment on the project for this story.
People in Banámichi say they want transparency. They say they haven’t heard directly from officials about the dam, even though it would block the river just about 10 miles north of them.
“We have some aspects that alarm and worry us,” because of the lack of public information, Lucía Sánchez with the group Movimiento en Defensa del Agua, el Territorio y la Vida told the small crowd gathered on the covered basketball court in Banámichi. A few dozen gathered here as the sun began to set on a Friday afternoon.
Her group is working with lawyers to try to get the project paused and holding meetings in other towns that would be affected by the dams. On the road to Banámichi, a few signs signal opposition to the dams: “A dry river is a town without life,” one sign warns.
A federal official said in March that construction would start in July. The three dams would cost about $400 million in U.S. dollars.
In Hermosillo, some water use experts think that money could be better spent on improving the city’s water management — rather than bringing in more water. Roughly half the water that flows through the city’s pipes goes unaccounted for, an issue that Colegio de Sonora water management researcher Nicolás Pineda says should be the top priority.
The dams won’t “help the city at all if we don’t fix the leaky pipe network of the city,” Pineda said.
Back in Banámichi, Maldonado is concerned that building a dam upriver from his cattle ranch will spell the end of what has been his family’s livelihood for three generations.
He needs the Río Sonora’s water to continue to run his business, which is already struggling thanks to the drought.
“If they make these dams, we are going to be out of water here in the Sonora River,” Maldonado said. “Simple like that.”
Another dry rainy season this year puts him in danger of having to sell his cattle, like other nearby ranchers who have already had to give up the business.
If his ranch survives the year, he worries the dam would make it impossible to keep going into the future, ending a way of life for the families who have tended cattle here for generations.
“That’s what we are living right now,” Maldonado said.
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South of the border, in the Mexican state of Sonora, the city of Hermosillo is dealing with ongoing water shortage and the various ways it impacts all walks of life. KJZZ’s Nina Kravinsky recently reported an illuminating series of stories about how drought is shaping life there, and joined The Show to discuss. -
The Sonoran capital’s water utility is working to shore up its supply in case a yearslong dry spell continues. Experts say it has its work cut out for it. -
In a hot and dry city, pockets of shade feel precious. Scientists say they’ll continue to be key as the sprawling city’s population nears 1 million.
