Wastewater and wishful thinking: Treatment plants to “revive” the Santiago River in Mexico

Abstract

This article grapples with issues of urban wastewater sanitation in one of Mexico's most polluted river basins, through an analysis of a river restoration project centered on the construction of municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Taking an ethnographic approach to the study of infrastructure, the main argument is that, beyond their possible contribution to reducing pollutant loads, in this context municipal WWTPs can best be understood through the concept of “duplication,” whereby the infrastructure works serve as a vehicle for the transfer of public resources to the private sector, through construction and operation contracts. At the same time, these plants also fulfill objectives related to their symbolic value, in this case as indicators of a commitment to resolving one of the state's main socio-environmental conflicts, while studiously avoiding its root causes, including industrial pollution sources. From an urban political ecology perspective, the paper also examines how investment in wastewater treatment infrastructure in the basin continues to reinforce social and environmental inequities, particularly for peri-urban communities along the Santiago River.