A new seawater desalination plant is being built in Cabo San Lucas for urban public services. It will have a drinking water production capacity of 250 liters per second.
The mayor of Los Cabos, Christian Agúndez Gómez, reported that this plant, which is being built using a public-private investment model, is 40% complete and is expected to be completed between October and November 2026.
He explained that this desalination plant was announced by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2019, but its construction has been delayed due to various procedures and studies.
“Unfortunately, the registration with the Federal Entity Coordination Unit took too long. I even attended meetings as president of the state congress’ water commission, and what we saw, honestly, was a bit of resistance to registering it for one reason or another.
“Sometimes it was technical issues, sometimes it was cost-benefit issues, sometimes it was uncertainty about the land; there were many issues. It was basically the actual process, not the actual construction. The project is going well, it’s progressing on time,” he explained.
He mentioned that the initial construction cost of the project was 1.2 billion pesos, but it depends heavily on certain criteria to update the budget, and there will likely be changes later, “hopefully not too much.”
The issue, he said, is that the price of concrete hasn’t been estimated, and sometimes rebar and steel prices rise for many reasons.
He specified that the complete project will be completed in the last quarter of 2026, but the city council is fighting to achieve at least a production of 100 liters per second between January and February of that year.
Christian Agúndez said that the current Cabo San Lucas desalination plant has a production capacity of 200 liters per second, but it has only been generating between 80 and 100 liters recently.
He said that there is a need for maintenance and rehabilitation of that plant, but the city council It is also fighting to have that infrastructure on its side at any time, as it is a 20-year concession that is about to expire, after it began operations in 2007.
Source: jornada
