Water is ‘white gold’ in Baja’s drying beach towns » Yale Climate Connections

Editor’s note: This is the third story in a series about climate-related water vulnerability in Mexico. Read the second story here.

Just before 10 a.m. on a Friday, Ramón Rafael Sanders cracks open another Tecate Light in the cab of his massive water truck. With an empty tank on the back, the truck idles under the searing desert sun just outside the city of La Paz in Baja California Sur, Mexico.

“If there is no water, there is no life,” Sanders said in Spanish. “Beer can disappear. The entire sea can disappear. But not water.”

He estimates it will be an hour-and-a-half wait this morning at the private well before his turn to refill in the line of pipas. In Mexico, “la pipa” refers colloquially to a water truck.

In the country’s driest state, Baja California Sur, pipas are an industry and fundamental way of life outside city centers. In rural areas and small towns, they form the supply line between wells and water treatment facilities and countless water tanks at individual homes, ranches, and businesses.

Water trucks are also common in some African countries facing water crises, war-torn Gaza, and world regions where piped municipal water infrastructure is lacking, limited, or compromised.

For Sanders – and any consumers who have to call the pipa every time the cistern at their home runs low – the distribution model is a daily reminder that water is not an infinite resource. Development is ramping up demand for water even as it grows increasingly scarce as a result of climate-change-driven heat waves, flooding, and droughts.

These forces shape life for Sanders, who at the age of 70 is running a water purification business and pipa delivery service in his hometown of El Sargento in Baja California Sur.

“With climate change, we aren’t taking care of the planet,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Hurricanes and tropical storms deliver freshwater to the Baja Peninsula, which protrudes south of California for 760 miles (1,220 kilometers) between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California.

But when seasonal rain doesn’t arrive or fails to saturate the ground, water levels can drop in the aquifers that supply water for wells and pipas alike. 

Where water is ‘white gold’

The pressure of tourism and development in this desert region over the past 20 years is pumping water out of some aquifers faster than the natural cycle can refill them.

This reality of scarcity and demand creates a paradox for Sanders and others in the water industry.

Today, the demand for freshwater means a thriving business. But if demand continues to soar while the strain on the natural water system increases, at best, the water quality in the aquifer will deteriorate. At worst, the water could dry up. 

Sanders switched from working as a commercial ocean fisher to a freshwater supplier roughly 25 years ago. He said one reason for the change was his fear of the ocean after his boat sank, an incident that left him lost at sea with his son for multiple days.

As he approached age 50, he opened his Purificada El Mezquite water business to serve the twin beach towns of El Sargento and La Ventana. Both communities are growing rapidly with investment in adventure tourism, vacation properties, and new seasonal homes owned mostly by U.S. and Canadian migrants.

“Water is white gold,” Sanders said. “It’s the best business you can find.”

Many of these visitors and residents fill their five-gallon water jugs and camper vans daily at Sanders’ water purification business, which recently expanded its treatment capacity.

Before selling drinking water, Sanders runs it through a charcoal system and filters out salt, other minerals, and possible bacteria. This step means that worsening well contamination adds to his treatment costs.

He estimates he sells 5,000 liters a day of drinking water during the high season.

Additionally, he refills the main water tanks at private homes with his 10,000-liter pipa. On busy days, he starts at 5 a.m. and makes three water refill trips to the well in the nearby town of Los Planes.

The well charges 500 Mexican pesos per 10,000 liters, which he delivers to private residents for about 1,500 pesos, with a full-service filling of their cisterns.

The unpredictable flow of water

Sanders says he recalls that 40 years ago, seasonal rains were more predictable in the hills above El Sargento, with rainfall regularly arriving in early summer.

“It’s changing. In my younger days, it was much better than it is today, mainly because of the rain,” he said.

Records from the past four decades show an average annual rainfall of just seven inches in the municipality of La Paz, which includes El Sargento. But the swings can be drastic, ranging from only 1.08 inches of rain one year to 16 times that amount another year. Years with barely any rain bring little to no recharge in the aquifer and wells below the soil.

In the La Paz region, the late summer of 2025 saw several inches of rainfall. That followed roughly 18 months with almost no rain, making 2024 the driest year of this century in Baja California Sur. Experts worry that consecutive dry spells in the near future could devastate water security.

“The water problem is very complicated here,” said María Z. Flores López, a hydrologist and director of the Integrated Water Management Program at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur. “Little rain. Saltwater intrusion. Growing population and tourism every year.” 

For coastal aquifers, a decrease in the freshwater level causes seawater to seep in, a threat exacerbated by rising seas. Put another way: As municipal demand increases on the freshwater aquifer, the available water gets saltier, requiring more filtration and treatment before use.

In light of Baja’s water challenges and the La Paz aquifer operating at a deficit, the federal government is building a new $133 million dam, El Novillo, designed to supply water for 250,000 residents.

Witnessing an Earth out of balance

After tossing a cold beer to a fellow pipa driver waiting at the well, Sanders shares his view of our changing planet. Excessive extraction of oil, he says, is a major problem.

“There are many people who care more about money than land. They are extracting money from the land and want to become richer and richer,” he said.

He holds up his fingers in the shape of a circle, describing Earth as an egg. Humans are sucking out substance from the center, he said, an action that throws off the balance of everything around it. 

He first noticed the change with a decrease in marine life. Now he sees it in rain patterns and freshwater availability. Even the rays of the sun burn hotter today, he said – echoing studies that pinpoint heat and increased evaporation rates as an accelerator for drought in recent years.

“When a drunk guy drinks a lot, how does he look when he’s walking? That’s how things are right now. The same thing is happening to the Earth,” Sanders said. 

So far, he says, none of that has hindered his business. It may even be increasing demand for his clean water, for now. But he questions the future for his five children and 12 grandchildren.

“I don’t have much money or anything, but what I do have is a very good family. That’s the most important thing,” he said. “And they are the ones that remain here.”