Baja California Sur Governor Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío broke ground on a new water retention project at Rancho El Vaquillo in the Los Planes delegation, a rural farming area roughly 45 minutes southeast of La Paz. The desiltation work, designated project No. 33, is part of a broader state initiative to build water capture and soil conservation infrastructure across all five BCS municipalities.
Castro Cosío was joined at the ceremony by Isaías González Cuevas, national leader of the CROC (Confederación Revolucionaria de Obreros y Campesinos), one of Mexico’s largest labor and farmworker unions. The state government and CROC have formalized their partnership through an agreement running through August 31, 2027, committing both parties to long-term water infrastructure development on the peninsula.
Over 1,000 Farmers Stand to Benefit
The project aims to recharge aquifers and maximize rainwater capture during BCS’s brief summer rainy season. State officials say more than 1,000 agricultural producers in the Los Planes zone will benefit from the improved water retention capacity. Los Planes sits in a semi-arid valley east of the Sierra de la Laguna mountains, where ranching and small-scale farming depend heavily on groundwater.
The desiltation work removes accumulated sediment from existing water retention basins, restoring their capacity to hold runoff and allow it to percolate into underground aquifers. Without regular maintenance, these basins lose effectiveness as silt fills them in over time.
Water Scarcity: A Defining Challenge for BCS
Baja California Sur is one of Mexico’s driest states, receiving an average of just 150 to 200 millimeters of rain per year. Soil erosion in the Sierra de la Laguna, caused in part by overgrazing and illegal logging, has reduced the natural rate of aquifer recharge that communities across the state depend on. Less than 25% of buildings in La Paz have water meters, creating little economic incentive to conserve the limited supply.
The state has pursued several water infrastructure projects in recent years. In January 2026, Governor Castro Cosío announced construction of the El Novillo dam near La Paz, the first major hydraulic project in BCS in over 30 years. That dam, paired with a 15-kilometer aqueduct, is designed to serve the roughly 300,000 residents of the La Paz urban area. The smaller retention projects like the one at El Vaquillo target rural communities and agricultural zones that sit outside the reach of large-scale urban water systems.
Project No. 33 is part of a numbered series of retention works the state and CROC have built across BCS under their formal agreement. The partnership treats water scarcity as both an agricultural and economic development issue, linking soil conservation directly to farm productivity in the state’s rural delegations.
The groundbreaking was first reported by the BCS state government website, bcs.gob.mx.