MXN$500 million poured down the drain in Mexico City

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The key element of the maintenance operation undertaken by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) at the Cutzamala water system in Mexico City , often referred to as “the inverted K” was of no use. To make things worse, the piece ended up being sectioned into three parts and packed away near the Los Berros Purification Plant between two of the most important lines of Mexico City’s water supply.

The K-shaped piece was supposed to connect four fronts of supply lines coming out of the plant. However, after 150 hours of maintenance works, the 185-ton “K,” which came with a very high cost –a significant part of the 500 million pesos destined to the maintenance operation- turned out to be useless .

According to José Luis Alcudia Goya, a spokesman from CONAGUA , the remains of the K-shaped pipe will be kept between the two water supply lines until a reengineering analysis is conducted to allow for its proper use .

In order to restore the water supply, workers from CONAGUA had to put back the pipes that they had initially removed to optimize the functioning of the water line .

The inverted “K” was the most important part of the maintenance operation that caused a water outage in 13 delegations of Mexico City and 12 municipalities in the State of Mexico . The outage was supposed to last three days, but was extended to seven .

Studies conducted for the introduction of said piece began in 2013 , for which the National Water Commission hired external consultants, according to the general director Roberto Ramírez de la Parra , who had initially confirmed that the introduction of the K-shaped pipe would allow for the maintenance of one of the pipes without stopping the other from pumping water. In the end, the water system remained just as it was before maintenance, and with the exact same materials .

Yesterday, at 18:45 hours

, the government body reported that the Cutzamala water System was once again pumping water to the capital, though it will take several days to normalize the water supply .