Amid water shortage, Tijuana gives away 100 water tanks — while other neighborhoods remain dry

While Tijuana’s city government was distributing 100 household water tanks in the eastern La Presa delegation on Wednesday, residents in other parts of the city were still reporting days without running water — the latest in a string of service suspensions that officials attribute to infrastructure repairs.

The tanks, 450-liter units made by Rotoplas, were handed out by Tijuana Mayor Abdiel Gutiérrez Coronado in the La Presa Abelardo L. Rodríguez delegation, one of the city’s largest and most populous districts. The brand has become a familiar sight across Tijuana as water scarcity has worsened and outages have grown longer — this month’s cuts stretched on for several consecutive days, in some cases a week.

City officials framed the giveaway as part of a broader strategy to improve the lives of their constituents.

Gutiérrez Coronado described the tanks as a way to guarantee what he called the human right to water.

City Secretary Ramón Vázquez Valadéz echoed that framing, saying that having water service and a way to store it is a basic necessity, and describing the tanks as direct support for those who need it most.

The press release distributed on Wednesday did not explain how recipient households were selected or how much the program cost. The suspensions this month were attributed by the State Public Services Commission — the state agency responsible for water supply — to repairs on distribution infrastructure and leaking pipelines.

Wednesday’s event was not an isolated gesture. Tijuana’s giveaway follows similar tank distributions in recent years by the governments of Playas de Rosarito and Ensenada, suggesting a pattern across Baja California’s coastal cities.