The Great Sewer Standoff

This month, our community drama had to do with the sewer line. The issue was urgent and completely solvable, but it became a huge bone of contention among the colonos. Here’s how it evolved. 

The sewer lines were installed some 30 years ago. While they met the standards at the time, they do not meet current requirements and will need to be replaced. As we have several other projects going on, the sewer line has taken a back seat–that is, until it started causing a stink–literally.

Heavy rains this year, and an accumulation of pig poop, dirt, and even trash caused the drain at the corner of the road behind me to begin overflowing into the street. Disgusting! The person who lived on the corner was understandably distressed. The topic was brought up at the last community meeting, and the issue was assigned to the newly minted Consejo de Honor y Justicia.

The Consejo de Honor y Justicia’s role is to provide mediation between colonos, taking some of the workload from the mesa directiva. Therefore, the job was to assess the severity of the sewer issue, talk to those affected, and endeavor to come up with a satisfactory solution. The mesa directiva could then take the plan and implement it.

Well, they didn’t do that. In fact, the members of the Consejo insisted that resolving said issue was outside of their purview. And thus, the sewer situation became a stand-off. 

Commentary about the sewer was polarized. Some said that it was the responsibility of the person who was putting the pig poop in the drain to pay for it to be fixed. Others asserted that each property owner could do exactly as they pleased and no one could hold them accountable.

There were only two possible culprits when it came to pig poop. One emphatically denied using the sewer to discard their animals’ excrement. The other said that the person who lived on the corner was being “delicate” which makes me suspect that the insulter might know a bit more than she was admitting about the situation. 

Then the comments became more intense, with blame being directed at the Mesa Directiva and specifically Super Prez for the poor state of affairs found in La Yacata. At that point, I decided to step in and clarify some of the information being bandied about. I wrote a historical account of sorts, going back 30 years, about the different issues with the utilities in La Yacata, and posted it to the community WhatsApp group. 

Without blaming anyone specifically, I reminded everyone that as a community, each colono’s actions affected their neighbors, and situations such as the sewer line should be resolved without name-calling. I also reminded everyone that it is NOT acceptable to dispose of animal feces in the sewer. The sewer is basic and old, and pig poop will stop it up. Things settled down a bit, and the suspected pig shoveling culprit even apologized for her statements. 

Finally, Super Prez stepped in, as the situation could not wait until the next community meeting, and had his workers make a start at unclogging the drain. 

The sewer will need to be replaced, and it’s on our long list of things to be addressed, although we hope that clearing it out a bit will extend its life just a little longer while we get the current projects sorted out. I’m sure this Sunday’s community meeting will be full of drama as always, but at least the smell has dissipated a bit. 

****

Interested in that historical I provided to the colonos? Check out La Yacata Revolution: How NOT to Buy a Piece of Heaven in Mexico. Available on Amazon!