Mexico City Seeks Water Self-Sufficiency

"The top environmental official in the Mexico City government, Martha Delgado Peralta, said recently the city was launching a new water sustainability policy to guarantee self-sufficiency and supply for future generations. The target is ambitious -- to reach self-sufficiency by 2020 -- and the government faces many serious hurdles. The booming megalopolis of 20 million people currently relies on several outside water sources, some of them rivers up to 80 miles away. The water must be pumped uphill over the mountains that surround the Valley of Mexico via a complex and energy-intensive system."