Manuel Ancira Elizondo, vice president of Altos Hornos de
Mexico (AHMSA), defended the Monterrey VI project to environmental agencies this week.
The CEO said that if the project was canceled, as requested by some environmentalists, "eventually there would be water shortages that would affect steel companies like AHMSA, which have invested heavily to provide infrastructure works.”
The project faced criticism from Eugenio Clariond Reyes Retana, president of the Metropolitan Water Fund Monterrey (FAMM), based on a study of the international organization The Nature Conservancy, which considered it highly expensive versus other alternatives to ensure the smooth transmission of water for Nuevo León state.
The Monterrey VI project involves the construction of an aqueduct of 372 kilometers long from Rio Pánuco to Nuevo León.
The Government of Nuevo León received approval from the National Water Commission (CNA) in 2010 under the administration of then President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, assigning a volume of domestic water from the Pánuco at 15 cubic meters per second, an amount that exceeds 100 percent of the current total supply to the metropolitan Area of Monterrey, in the Nuevo León state.