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The Decade of the Grijalva: Bureaucratic Change and the Streamlined Politics of Water Management in Southeastern Mexico

By Robinson Niklas

	FREE

OVERVIEW

Beginning in 1947, the Mexican PRI technocrats embarked on a nationwide modernization program to enhance energy production, agricultural output and expand transportation networks, relying on the corporatist political strategy employed with stunning success during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas. Engineers estimated the Grijalva River basin contained over fifty percent of the nation’s hydropower and proposed a series of multi-purpose dams. The history of Grijalva exemplifies how Latin American mega-projects incur damaging and unpredictable consequences, such as population displacements, environmental disruption, soil erosion, declining water quality, and the initiation of cultural, ethnic and labor conflicts.