Governor Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío delivered a completed sewer system to two neighborhoods in southern La Paz on May 13, connecting more than 1,000 households to municipal sanitation infrastructure for the first time. The project, worth 10 million pesos (roughly $550,000 USD), targeted the colonias of Jericó and Valle Dorado-Los Pinos.
Crews installed 8.41 kilometers of sewer lines, 113 manholes, and 303 new household connections. A 497-meter pipeline now links Colonia Jericó directly to the city’s main sanitary collector, giving residents a reliable path for wastewater that previously had none.
Federal Funds Behind the Build
The state government financed the work through FISE, the Fondo de Infraestructura Social para las Entidades, a federal program that channels money to states for basic infrastructure in underserved communities. FISE projects typically cover water, drainage, electricity, and roads in areas classified as having high or very high levels of poverty.
Both Jericó and Valle Dorado-Los Pinos sit on the southern edge of La Paz, in areas that have grown rapidly in recent years without keeping pace in utility coverage. Residents there previously relied on septic tanks or improvised drainage, conditions that increase the risk of groundwater contamination and waterborne illness in a desert city where freshwater resources are already strained.
Part of a Larger Infrastructure Push
The sewer project is one piece of a broader wave of utility investment in La Paz. Construction recently began on the El Novillo dam, a 2.4 billion peso (approximately $133.6 million USD) project expected to supply drinking water to roughly 250,000 residents by 2027. The city has also invested in new elevated water tanks in the Diana Laura, Paraíso del Sol, and La Pasión neighborhoods to improve storage capacity and water pressure.
For La Paz, a city of about 300,000 people, basic services have struggled to keep up with population growth and expanding colonias on the urban fringe. Sewer coverage in many southern neighborhoods has lagged behind development for years.
The governor presented the completed project alongside local officials at a ceremony in the Jericó neighborhood. The original announcement was published by the Baja California Sur state government at bcs.gob.mx.