Looking tired and haggard, William Coronado pulls up before dawn with a boat full of fish on the muddy shore of Nicaragua’s Lake Managua, a dumping ground for trash and waste.
“The lake is so polluted. They throw all sorts of crap into it,” the 56-year-old said. “Containers, old buckets, all sorts of bags — all the junk they throw away in Managua. It’s a disgrace.”
Coronado spent two days under the Central American sun and windy nights to bring in a haul of hundreds of tiny two-banded sea bream and other freshwater fish, to sell them for US$1.30 per dozen to a business just north of the capital, Managua.
Photo: AFP
His wife, Rosa, waits for him in a rickety house built of tin and plastic located just 300m from the lake, living in extreme poverty like most of the neighbors.
Lake Managua, also known as Lake Xolotlan, is one of the biggest freshwater bodies in Central America. It is also one of the most polluted, a problem that started nearly a century ago.
Between 1967 and 1992, a US chemical company, Pennwalt, regularly dumped mercury into its depths.
From 1927 to 2009, the capital, which sits on the lake, tipped its untreated sewage and factory outflows into the lake.
Eight years ago, the government finally opened a treatment plant financed by German funding and the Inter-American Development Bank. Since then, the pollution has eased, the bad odors have lessened and the lake has become a tourist attraction.
However, the former head of the state water company, Ruth Herrera, said that it could take another 100 years before the expanse of water is finally clean — maybe longer, if residents continue to tip their garbage into it.
Health authorities in the country are still warning pregnant women to avoid eating fish caught in the lake to prevent their babies developing disorders such as mental retardation or stunted growth due to the high mercury levels.
A study carried out last year by the Autonomous University of Nicaragua, with backing from Japan, found that the guapote freshwater fish from Lake Nicaragua had 0.46 micrograms of mercury per kilo, above the authorized level of 0.40.
Other species of fish had lower levels, and most of the lake has trace levels of mercury.
“Maybe these fish have low levels, but over the long term, the population could have health effects if it eats them,” said Jurguen Guevara of Centro Humboldt, an environmental group.
Herrera also advised against eating fish from the lake, although she suggested that the estimated 100,000 mostly poor people living around its shores might have developed some sort of resistance to illnesses by eating the fish.
“We eat fish from there every day and nothing has happened to us,” said Ofelia Ramirez, from a village called Tipitapa.
However, the locals have little choice: they are among the one-third of Nicaragua’s population living under the poverty line, and the lake represents their only source of work and sustenance.
Dozens of fishermen can be seen sailing in the middle of the night in small boats made of fiberglass or wood, pulling up nets cast in the lake.
“We bring back about 20 dozen” fish every day, said Juan Ramirez, a 30-year-old setting off in a canoe with his two children to help him fish the lake’s waters.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS