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http://www.vocativ.com/world/mexico-world/fish-kill-environment/
The incident was the worst in a series of environmental disasters in Mexico this year
CAJITITLÁN, MEXICO—Gaze across Lake Cajititlán here
in western Mexico and normally you’ll see fisherman cutting their nets
and tourist boats gliding over the blue-green water. But that
picturesque scene turned grim last week when more than 4 million dead
fish suddenly surfaced, turning the water a sinister shade of gray.
For days, the smell of rotting scales lingered in the air as locals
joined government workers to scoop up more than 156 tons of freshwater
popoche chub, a sardine-sized species native to the western state of
Jalisco.
Millions of dead fish mysteriously rose to the surface of Lake Cajititlán in western Mexico last week.
EFE/ZUMAPRESS.com
It’s still unclear what killed the fish, but the incident was the
worst in a spate of environmental disasters in Mexico this year. Early
last month, a river in the northern state of Sonora took on a sickly
brown-red color after workers from a nearby mine dumped thousands of
gallons of sulfuric acid into the water. In Veracruz state, near the
Gulf of Mexico, a gasoline spill contaminated almost 5 miles of a small
river near the town of Tierra Blanca. And last Thursday, the Pacific
coast of Sinaloa state also saw a sudden and seemingly inexplicable
mountain of dead fish rise to the surface.
Mexico, like many developing nations, has a poor environmental
record, but it was still unusual for the country to experience such a
quick succession of environmental disasters. What ties them together,
critics say, are lax environmental standards, a complete lack of
industry oversight and an inability to penalize people and companies
that pollute.
“These cases are just the tip of the iceberg of the opacity in which
industries in Mexico operate,” environmental watchdog Greenpeace said
last week in a statement. “The laxity of the laws permit them to
contaminate in exchange for derisory fines posing as ‘reparation of
damages,’ without taking into account any external factors.”
The case of Lake Cajititlán is a classic example of how disasters
often unfold in Mexico. Environmental experts are still trying to figure
out what killed the fish, but that hasn’t prevented the authorities
from bickering over who or what was to blame.
The incident was the worst in a spate of environmental disasters in Mexico this year.
VOCATIV/DUNCAN TUCKER
Just two weeks before the incident, the local government took the
unusual step of deploying police officers to guard the lake. Mayor
Ismael del Toro claimed that groups linked to the Institutional
Revolutionary Party, which governs at the state and federal level, may
have been deliberately contaminating the water to discredit his
environmental record. Yet he was quick to downplay suspicions of foul
play last week, affirming that “it’s not fair to politicize such a
sensitive issue.”
The mayor suggested that the mass deaths were merely the result of
natural biological cycles, but state officials dismissed this theory out
of hand, blaming the disaster squarely on his government’s failure to
properly treat the sewage that enters the lake from surrounding towns
and industrial plants.
Although unproven, such accusations gained credence late last week
when the Del Toro administration admitted it had discovered a fault in
part of a waste water treatment plant where animal remains, solvents,
combustibles and industrial chemicals are processed before entering the
lake.
Locals joined government workers to scoop up more than 156 tons of
freshwater popoche chub, a sardine-sized species native to the western
state of Jalisco.
CORBIS/ EPA/Ulises Ruiz Basurto
As the political infighting continues, residents of the six lakeside
fishing villages who have been hit hardest by the disaster are unsure
just what to believe. As the owner of a local seafood restaurant, who
asked to remain anonymous, puts it: “The politicians talk bad about the
lake, but we’re the ones who suffer.”