The largest lake in Mexico, Lake Chapala, is in a state of defenselessness. Not only are they taking away water and space with invasions, they are also dumping sewage, which nobody wants.
And proof of this is a clandestine intake that spills waste day and night, near the municipality of Jocotepec. Residents of the area assure that it is one of several.
The case was reported publicly by residents of the area and will be formalized before the environmental authorities.
Just a few days ago the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation denied an injunction to a citizen who wanted to prevent a subdivision from being built on the land of the lake itself.
The only one who opposed this session of the Second Chamber was the minister Lenia Batres, let’s listen:
“I am against and in favor of the defense of the ecosystem of Lake Chapala and I simply point out that there is a tendency that I find incomprehensible to discard precisely cases that do have social importance and that have repercussions on the public interest.
In this case, it is the environment and an area of urban growth that needs the protection of the Mexican State at this time, in which we should play a fundamental role and we are leaving the ecosystem of Lake Chapala in a defenseless state. I am against it.”
And although this positioning was of little use, since the majority prevailed, this situation did cause concern considering that this subdivision invading the territory of the lake is not the only case, since recently houses have even been found invading the lake basin.
But to that we must add the water that we take from it and that at this moment keeps the lake at only 35 percent of its capacity, and at the same time, the new reserves and subdivisions built in the lake basin, above Jocotepec and Ajijic, deposit their sewage there with impunity.
Jorge Carlos Ruíz, citizen comptroller, received the complaints and assures that he will reply to the State Commission of Human Rights, to the National Commission and to the environmental authorities of both the State and the federation.
They gave him various proofs, including videos where it is noted that sewage is coming out of a municipal deposit in jets towards Lake Chapala.
“They tell us that it is a generalized area there in Jocotepec, the most regrettable thing number one, because it is an ecosi and apart from that it is a homicide that has been committed against the people of Jalisco from the Ribera de Chapala to La Barca, Ocotlán, Poncitlán where there are so many people with so many kidney and liver diseases.
And unfortunately we have this situation that it is said that a lot of money is being invested to treat the residual waters and that they are feeding our most important lake in the country and that people go, they feed on the fish from the Chapala lagoon.
And apart from that, they go and bathe there a few meters away is this boardwalk in this part of Jocotepec. Imagine, what situation we are living and how regrettable all this contamination that reaches our Lake Chapala can be.”
But the situation can be worse, since the same complainants assure that there are also discharges of sewage in different points of the lake. It is the voice of the citizen comptroller:
“Yes, direct contamination due to the lack of the municipality treating the water, is a state issue that is causing the damage, but it is a gap, it is a federal issue, and the authorities will also be able to determine that there is a double responsibility of the municipality and the state.
And so the federal authority will have to combat all these types of irregularities, what they are telling us is that they are going to send us more evidence of this type of wastewater discharges that are happening throughout the municipality of Jocotepec, that is, it is not the only one.
No, it is not the only one, they tell us that it is also happening in San Pedro Tesistán, we have to see everything that is happening, we must not forget that the irrigation of the berries, all of this, may be due to this water and that we will be there.”
He therefore calls for decisive intervention by the authorities to put an end to the damage being done to what is currently the main source of water supply for the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, but also to the one we mistreat the most.
Source: udgtv
