More than 500 residents in La Paz’s Colonia Lagunitas will receive piped water for the first time after three decades of relying on delivery trucks, Mayor Milena Quiroga Romero announced on April 27 during a press conference at the neighborhood’s park.
The project will connect 102 families to the municipal hydraulic network in its first phase. Of those, 62 households have already signed service contracts at an on-site enrollment station set up by OOMSAPAS La Paz, the city’s water and sewer utility (Organismo Operador Municipal del Sistema de Agua Potable, Alcantarillado y Saneamiento). The remaining families are expected to complete paperwork in coming days.
Old Infrastructure Replaced Before Hookups
OOMSAPAS Director Abimael Ibarra Abundez said crews found a previously abandoned, incomplete water line in the colonia. Workers replaced deteriorated pipes with new ones, installed metering stations, and repaired valves to feed the distribution network before residents could be connected.
Until now, Lagunitas families paid for water deliveries by pipa, the tanker trucks common across water-scarce parts of Baja California Sur. Pipa service is both more expensive and less reliable than metered tap water, with deliveries sometimes delayed during peak summer demand.
Wider Repairs Across La Paz
Quiroga tied the Lagunitas project to a broader infrastructure strategy driven by the city’s Centro de Monitoreo del Agua, a monitoring hub that identifies problems at the colonia level rather than by larger service sectors. She said the approach allows the city to target the neighborhoods with the worst gaps first.
OOMSAPAS is simultaneously running repair projects elsewhere in La Paz. On Calle Rosales, between Madero and Revolución, crews are fixing a collapsed sewer collector. In Colonia Guadalupe Victoria, a long-troubled drainage line is near the end of rehabilitation. Workers are also addressing sanitary sewer collapses in Fraccionamiento Perla, where some pipes are more than 60 years old.
Water Access Framed as a Basic Right
“We are guaranteeing that water is not a privilege. It is a right, and we in the La Paz city government are working responsibly and honestly so that water can reach more people,” Quiroga said at the event.
La Paz, the capital of Baja California Sur, faces chronic water challenges due to its desert climate and a growing population that strains an aging distribution system. Informal and older colonias on the city’s periphery have historically been the last to receive network connections.
This story was first reported by Noticias La Paz and Diario Humano.