During the last quarter century, the focus of water management in many parts of the world has turned from increasing water supplies through the construction of large hydraulic infrastructure, to reducing demand for the liquid by users. New neoliberal water management strategies focus on recovering delivery costs from users, increasing the efficiency of water systems, and decentralizing maintenance and operation. In northern Mexico, this decentralized management of water is accompanied by educational programs designed to create a "water culture" based on shared environmental and economic values and surveillance of water use by schoolchildren. This article explores the quotidian dynamics of one such water culture program and locates these dynamics within larger processes of neoliberal water governance. A main argument of this article is that demand management depends heavily on interventions in culture and social relations.