It’s Okay To Drink The Water

I’ve touched on the subject of water briefly before in the Cabo vs Camping post. Here’s a little deeper dive (so to speak) into the subject…

Where Does Our Water Come From?

Cabo San Lucas gets it water from a number of different sources. A portion of our water is piped in from the Sierra de La Laguna mountain range about 70 kilometres (40 miles) north of the city. Over time the city’s growth managed to exceed what this natural source could provide, so in 2006 they built a Desalination Plant as an additional clean water source. But even that wasn’t enough. To supplement repeating occurrences of days without having city-supplied water, in 2007 the Pedregal neighbourhood (some of the highest-priced real estate in Baja) homeowners association decided to build their very own desalination plant to serve their 650 homes. It was so successful, the Pedregal plant began selling its excess water production back to the city.

Following this model, a couple of years ago the Cabo local government mandated that all major new developments must have their own desalination and wastewater treatment plants. It is estimated that there are now about 30 desalination plants operating in the Cabo San Lucas area. Some neighbourhoods now are completely off the city grid having their own electricity, sewage treatment, and water.

Where we live, our neighbourhood has its own wastewater treatment plant. But we are too far from the water to have our own desalination plant, so we rely on the city-supplied water.

But Water Is Still Scarce

Even with so many developments providing their own water, the city still has a tough time keeping up with water demand for the properties to which it still provides water. Because the capacity isn’t available to provide all properties with continuous water all the time, the city provides water to different neighbourhoods on a rotating basis. Sometimes this can be up to 2-3 times a week. At other times – like when we first got here – it can be once every 16-20 days. At the consumer level the way to handle this is to have a large cistern to store water when it is available, and to draw from that cistern daily as-needed.

For us, we have our own 5,000-litre underground cistern beside the building. Inside the cistern is a submersible pump which pushes water up to our 1,000-litre holding tank on the roof (“tinaco” in local terminology). From the tinaco, water flows down to our unit where a pressurizing pump provides constant water pressure to our taps, shower, etc. In case of a power outage we still get water flow, but only at gravity-fed pressure from the tinaco.

The cistern has a float valve. When we draw water from the cistern, the float lowers and opens the valve to the city pipes. When the city water rotation comes around to us, water from the city pipe fills our cistern until the float valve reaches the top and automatically shuts it off. With this setup, we always have an ample supply of water!

Most of the time…

Twice in the eleven months that we have been here, we have used all of the water in the cistern before the city water came on to fill it up again. Over the hot dry summer, water supply from the mountains is greatly reduced. So with less supply to draw from, the city’s water distribution rotates on a much slower cycle. On top of this, there was some construction damage to one of the city’s water mains near our neighbourhood so the water supply was reduced even more to our area while they repaired it.

When this happens, we call a water truck! These trucks are seen running around Los Cabos all the time, topping up people’s cisterns as they need it. They also serve customers who are not attached to the city pipes – these people rely solely on trucks to bring all of their water.

A water truck holds 10,000 litres – enough to fill two 5,000-litre cisterns. A 5,000-litre fill costs 750 Mexican Pesos (CAD$47 / US$37). Not prohibitively expensive, but more than our monthly city water bill which is typically 92 Mex Pesos (CAD$5.75 / US$4.56).

We Make It Last

With just the two of us here, if the city water doesn’t come on, a full cistern of water will last us about one month. This includes all of our usual daily life activities like toilet flushing, hand washing, showering, running the dishwasher, doing laundry, etc. We have no lawn or plants to water, so no water usage for those is needed.

We do take pro-active measures to not waste water wherever possible. We try not to leave the water running while we’re washing things. We have a low-flow shower head. We recently replaced the toilet in our Guestroom/Office bathroom with a new dual-flush model. And most recently installed a new High Efficiency clothes washer. Every little bit helps!

Is It Safe To Drink The Water?

We’ve all heard the warning so many times:  If you’re going to Mexico, don’t drink the water!
There is some truth to this… but it’s not as bad as people think.

Los Cabos water supply is pretty clean. It’s pure when it leaves the city’s treatment and distribution center. But what happens between there and your drinking glass is sometimes questionable. Since Los Cabos relies so much on tourism dollars, there are many precautions in place to ensure that tourists aren’t driven away by fear of water-borne illness.

In our condo, we have two-stage cartridge filtration and UV sterilization of all water coming in to our unit. In addition to that, our fridge has an inline filter on its supply line and another internal filter to ensure that the ice maker and water dispenser on the door provide the cleanest possible water.

Most restaurants and hotels have similar setups, ensuring that their guests can stay hydrated and healthy.

So in most Cabo settings that you may find yourself in, go ahead and brush your teeth without fear, open your eyes in the shower, and suck on those ice cubes!

Back in British Columbia we rarely thought about the water. It was just there. All the time. The city supplied limitless clean pressurized water straight into our homes 24/7/365. Yet people still griped when in the Summertime there were “watering restrictions” limiting when we could let it freely flow into our lawns and gardens. We took it for granted.

Here in Baja California Sur, we are much more respectful of our water. It’s a precious commodity, a necessity of life. It’s not just for scaring tourists! 😜

ps…  Don’t forget to check out the latest Snippets!