Los Torres

TIKKUN RESERVOIR AND WATERSHED RESTORATION PROJECT: LOS TORRES COMMUNITY

 “Water is life”. Without water there is no food security in the rural communities surrounding the city of San Miguel de Allende. Of the San Miguel municipal population of 174,000, over 100,000 are campesinos who live in rural villages and towns in the "campo" surrounding San Miguel de Allende Centro. 

The village of Los Torres is located just 15 kilometers NW of San Miguel Center. Los Torres has approximately 500 residents. Well water test reports published by Caminos de Agua show that the community's two wells have highly toxic levels of Fluoride and Arsenic. It was determined that their drinking water and their well for animals are both unsafe for drinking and cooking. Yet many in the community still use these resources for cooking and for their animals.  

The only safe water supply for animals (and potentially for humans) is the reservoir that the community calls the Bordo “Las Piedras”, located 5 kilometers west from the village. That reservoir has become increasingly dysfunctional for many decades because it has not been maintained. It also became shallow due to deposits of eroded soils from above, and therefore the water that did accumulate quickly evaporated. Also, a destructive fire 14 years ago destroyed the forest above the reservoir, which exacerbated the erosion of the watershed and silt accumulation in the reservoir.

In mid-2023 community leaders, representing the community of Ejido came to Tikkun to see our first reservoir rehabilitation project in San Jose de Gracia, having heard about our work in San Jose de Gracia which was completed in 2022.

In early 2024 Tikkun conducted initial testing holes of the reservoir, and then received funding from various Foundations, including the San Miguel Community Foundation, to develop a plan for restoration of the Los Torres reservoir. Eventually, in May of  2024, these funds were merged with a Caminos de Agua and INANA  grant from the Rio Arronte Foundation, to develop a full rehabilitation of the reservoir and the watershed at Los Torres. 

This work of Tikkun, and its partner Caminos de Agua-INANA and Rio Arronte as the main financial Foundation, includes not only repairing reservoirs and filtering wells, it also involves repairing the surrounding watershed through terracing and reforestation, which will allow for more penetration of rain into the subsoils, which in turn can be made possible the use of captured rainwater to irrigate the young sapling trees in the reforestation phase of the project. The reforestation reverses soil erosion, creates shade and wildlife habitat, and begins the process of water table regeneration, ecological restoration, and climate change resiliency. 

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