Head of Government of Mexico City, Clara Brugada, inaugurated this Thursday the Rain Garden, located in Santa Úrsula Coapa, a work that will capture rainwater and mitigate floods in the neighborhoods adjacent to the Azteca Stadium. "We are launching a water management model that bets on infiltrating, recovering, and returning water to the subsoil to face, simultaneously, the scarcity and floods," she stated during the event where she was accompanied by the mayor of Coyoacán, Giovani Gutiérrez, and the Secretary of Water of Mexico City, José Mario Esparza. According to the Head of Government, the work inaugurated this Thursday had an investment of 22 million pesos and will benefit 40,000 families living in the vicinity of the Azteca Stadium, as it will allow infiltrating more than a million liters of rainwater in a single point. However, the focus is multidimensional, as the plans also include work related to mobility, tourism, infrastructure, the environment, and water. This work was already tested with the rains of March 18, when 30 millimeters fell in the area when the monthly average is barely ten. The upcoming rainy season is a major challenge for the government headed by Clara Brugada for two reasons. The first, 2025 registered strong storms that broke historical records and caused serious problems in different points of the city, both in the north, such as the Gustavo A. Madero mayor's office, and in the south of Xochimilco and Tlalpan. The second, it will happen in the middle of the Football World Cup, which can generate operational problems for the sporting event and for the two million people that the government expects to arrive in CDMX. The garden includes comprehensive infrastructure that includes storm tanks, collectors, and filtration mechanisms that allow capturing, cleaning, and infiltrating rainwater, which will contribute to recharging the aquifer. José Mario Esparza explained that the Rain Garden has a "surface rainwater capture capacity" on Azteca Avenue, which will enter two boxes designed to separate it from garbage, fats, oils, and sediments that it may have, and in this way, remove these residues with hydro-pneumatic trucks. The water that remains separated will be channeled to a perimeter channel until the Garden.
