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image source, AFP
Fishermen have removed tons of dead fish from the Cajititlán lagoon.
Shovels, wheelbarrows and trucks full of dead fish: an image that is repeated on the shores of the Cajititlán lagoon, in Mexico.
The fishermen of the municipality of Tlajomulco have removed some 50 tons of dead popocha fish in the last week, in a task that has not yet finished.
image source, AFP
The freshwater popocha fish inhabits the Cajititlán lagoon and the nearby and larger Chapala lagoon.
But the reason for the massive death of fish in this lagoon, located in the state of Jalisco south of the city of Guadalajara, is still not known.
Local authorities have suggested that it is part of the «natural cycle,» but state officials have shown that the phenomenon is due to «mismanagement of water.»
More dead fish are expected to wash up on shore in the coming days.
María Magdalena Ruiz Mejía, Jalisco’s environment secretary, «categorically denied that this is a cyclical and natural phenomenon.»
«We have no evidence to suggest that this is natural and cyclical, on the contrary, we have a series of variables that lead us to believe that this phenomenon is not only recurrent and is becoming more frequent and serious, but also that it is caused by the poor management of the body of water,» said the official.
sewage water
According to Ruiz Mejía, the mud from three local wastewater treatment plants could have caused the mass death of popocha.
Local journalists asked him if his secretariat had evidence to support this suspicion, to which Ruiz Mejía replied that it has not yet been possible to investigate the aforementioned treatment plants because state authorities have been denied access.
image source, AFP
Fishermen, firefighters and state officials help clean up dead fish in the lagoon.
The state secretary would declare the lagoon in the environment, but clarified that there is no danger to human health.
For its part, the municipality of Tlajomulco had suggested that the death of the fish is due to a cyclical change in temperature that causes less oxygen in the water.
But Ruiz Mejía said that this is the fourth massive death of unexplained fish in the lagoon so far this year and that it is ruled out that the phenomenon is due to natural causes.
For their part, the fishermen who live off the lagoon are concerned.
«We don’t want this problem to start because we would be left on the street,» Rigoberto Díaz, a local fisherman, told the AFP news agency.
Díaz fears that other species will be affected, such as tilapia, which is edible.
The lake is 9km long and 2km wide and is located to the north of the much larger Lake Chapala, around 500km west of Mexico City.
string of disasters
The dead fish from the Cajititlán lagoon add to a recent monitoring of environmental incidents in Mexico.
In Veracruz, a recent oil spill allegedly caused by a clandestine intake polluted the Hondo stream and left various species of animals dead, according to the newspaper Milenio.
image source, AFP
Environmental authorities say it is the fourth mass fish kill incident in 2014.
Two weeks ago, another oil spill on a pipeline caused contamination of the San Juan River, which feeds agricultural fields in the northern region of Nuevo León.
Shortly before, a mine contaminated with 40,000 cubic meters of sulfuric acid the Sonora River in the northwest of the country.
In one of the worst environmental disasters in the mining sector in recent years, the company that operates the Cananea copper mine, where the spill originated, could face penalties that rise to several million dollars.
image source, EPA
Fishermen fear that the phenomenon also affects other species.