Once again, sewer water has been discharged into the community of Don Diego. This time it did not go to Presa de La Cantera, but directly onto the street. Although the street is not populated, a complaint was placed and the authorities responded.

It is not the first time that waste water has been discharged in this rural area. Resident Don Benito Hernández knows this all too well; he says that until about 20 years ago the Hotel Misión emptied its sewer water toward the property of Mr. Chon, a resident of said community, but he used that water to cultivate some of his plots. Hernández also remembers that houses adjacent to Los Frailes used to drain sewer water into a vacant area—but no longer, he clarified.

In September, after almost three years of waste water being discharged into the Cantera Dam, and the contamination of the Carrizos stream with sewage from the Parroquia and El Milagro residential developments, residents of several surrounding communities complained to SAPASMA, the Potable Water and Sewerage System, which got down to work building a wastewater treatment plant in La Parroquia II residential development, which now releases treated water with NOM003 quality into the stream.

Still, one incident is occurring after another, the most recent involving the Luna Motel, located on the road to Celaya. It was discharging its sewer water towards an uninhabited Street that serves as a thruway for workers and inhabitants of the Don Diego community.

Following on the Dec. 2 complaint to SAPASMA, the motel was inspected. The inspectors found that the establishment has a biodigester that does not work properly. According to Director of SAPASMA, Francisco Jiménez, they also found that a backhoe had broken one of the sewer pipes inside the property, causing the water to be discharged onto the street.

The pipe was broken when Atención visited the site on Dec. 2. Further, a ditch had been dug to drain the sewer water onto the street.

In an interview, Jiménez told Atención that the sewer water outlet was now closed off and that the motel had to pay a fine of 7,000 pesos, “the maximum fine” for such a violation. The establishment will have to fix its biodigester and treat the water so that it has NOM001 quality, to be used for the irrigation of green areas, “but it cannot be discharged onto public roads or waterways. You can keep it on your property but nothing else.” Jiménez said that if the discharge of sewer water continues, SAPASMA will suspend the motel’s drinking water supply.