Nathalia's Water Stories in Mexico

Yelapa view          Photo by Mara Alper

           Nathalia tells me several water stories. I’ll start with the one most likely to happen. Here in Yelapa at Los Narajos Guest House where she lives with her husband, Jarrett, she hopes to create both a rain water storage system and a water filtration system using constructed wetlands to create grey water suitable for watering the beautiful, extensive gardens on the land. The plan she draws for me is simple yet impressive.
          She recommends Natural Systems International as a resource @ www.natsys-inc.com. )Turns out they built the constructed wetlands at Omega Institute that I've seen in Rhinebeck, NY. See a video about it on Vimeo at http://vimeo.com/15457107)

Source: Natural Systems International    www.natsys-inc.com/resources/about-constructed-wetlands

            Natalia is a civil engineer in her late 20s, trained in Guadalajara. She first came to Yelapa hired by a well-known firm to consult about building a sewage system in this small village on the Pacific. After several months, it became clear to her that people wanted a reliable water system to replace the black hoses they run up the town waterfall for their water source. Up to thirty hoses cascade over the waterfall edge, a parody of what a fall should be. Sorry I didn’t get photo of it myself to show you.

              The townspeople wanted an effective water delivery system more than they wanted the sewage system. When Natalia heard there was a plan to bury the electric wires for the electricity brought here only seven years ago, she realized it would make sense to bury the sewer system and water pipes at the same time in the same place to save future money and time.

              She talked to the local government and suggested this unified plan. When word got to his government superior, she was contacted and told to stay out of it. Instead they buried the electrical lines, and left both the sewer and the water lines undone.

                That’s all I’ll say about this saga right now. Suffice it to say, this bright, young woman civil engineer saw a reasonable solution and was told to keep it to herself. Frustration is too mild a word. The town still has uses only the black hoses from the waterfall or from springs up the mountains although it is growing in population and the summer rains are not necessarily reliable as climate shifts.