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Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Guatemala CityQ7.6242 per US$+0.00%
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Water on the Pacific coast and competition with irrigation

Dossier
Water for industry14-agua-industrial.md
Domain
Industrial water, wells and dischargesagua
Room
Energy/energia
Audited
Audited

The Pacific slopes (the Boca Costa) have high rainfall, but the south coast carries heavy irrigation demand (sugar cane, oil palm, bananas) with rivers diverted in the dry season: seasonal competition for surface water is intense. In 2018 the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office documented diversions of the Madre Vieja river by Grupo HAME (Mongabay, 2021). The technical source, the 'Recursos Hídricos' chapter of the SGCCC (Basterrechea & Guerra), returned a 403 during the audit of 2026-08-22 and could not be checked.

The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.

Caveat

SGCCC not checked (403 during the audit)

Sources

Organizations named in the answer

  • Grupo HAMEWater-versus-agribusiness conflict precedent: parent company of REPSA; accused by the Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH) in 2018 of diverting the Madre Vieja river towards palm plantations and in 2019 of the same on the Suchiate riverCompany case
  • MongabayNews outlet; coverage of the REPSA / La Pasión river case and of the murder of Rigoberto Lima Choc (September 2015).Other

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This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.