MEXICO CITY — The rainy season is fast approaching, when downpours will swamp this region's rickety drainage system. The only thing standing between 20 million residents and streets filled with raw sewage may be Julio Cesar Cu.
Cu is a professional diver, but his domain is neither the rolling Pacific nor the glittering Caribbean.
He is part of a small team of divers who submerge themselves deep into the bowels of Mexico's City's sewer system to perform some of the filthiest, most frightening plumbing chores imaginable.
Like the Dutch boy who plugged the leaky sea wall with his finger, Mexico City's sewer divers are a last line of defense against a threatening tide.
"Too many people and too much waste," said Cu, neatly summarizing the messy task that confronts him daily in one of the world's most densely populated urban zones.
Floating in a sea of human waste and industrial chemicals, he and three compatriots unplug pipes, repair pumps and pull the occasional cadaver from canals to keep the aguas negras, or black waters, flowing.
As if the job weren't difficult enough, they do it completely by feel, groping in liquid so murky that flashlights are useless. The work is dangerous, poorly paid and virtually unknown to millions of Mexicans whose shoes are all the drier for the divers' efforts.
To his knowledge, no other dive team works exclusively in the sewers.
But then no place can match Mexico City for world-class plumbing problems. Perched 7,350 feet above sea level in a valley surrounded by mountains, the area is essentially a closed basin with lousy drainage and a propensity for flooding and earthquakes.
Once dotted with shallow lakes and marshes, the valley was siphoned by the conquering Spanish to create more land for their colonial capital.
Today, drinking water must be pumped from distant rivers as well as from an underground aquifer whose rapid depletion is causing the city to sink.
Meanwhile, sewage must be pumped up and out of this bowl. It adds up to tremendous stress on a fragile drainage system already straining to keep pace with the burgeoning population.
"Mexico City is famous for its air pollution, but our water problems are actually worse," said Homero Aridjis, a prominent environmental activist.
"You walk the streets, smell the stench of raw sewage and can only imagine what's happening underground."
