By Carola Rico
The engineer Arturo Morales Tirado, activist, former director of Municipal Environment and Ecology (22 years ago in the administration of Oscar Arroyo Delgado), and advisor on environmental issues for Atención San Miguel, granted an interview to talk about the proposals he has for the eradication and containment of the Water Lily infestation in the Allende Dam.
Morales began by explaining that this infestation is a result of the disorder and unsustainable model of our urban development, and is part of the contamination of the ecosystems of San Miguel.
According to Morales, the environmental challenges are not only for the municipality but for the world. The first challenge is the lack of demographic planning, that is, the doubling of the human population. In the case of San Miguel, it has increased more than twice per generation in the last 25 years, and there is no planning that can supply the needed services or meet the demands of a population when it reproduces this fast.
The second challenge is that we do not have a good management of natural resources and this is called economy. At this point, it is necessary to check that the regulations and legislation are complied with. The third challenge is ecology and ecosystems. We have exceeded the capacity of our ecosystems and our environmental services are no longer sustainable because we have degraded and deteriorated them more and more.
The fourth challenge is demographics, we continue to grow as a society, but neither space nor resources are growing, so there is an imbalance. In addition, according to Morales, today we live longer, but in worse conditions, and there is a large population that lives marginally.
The fifth challenge is migration to our municipality––more and more people come to live in our city. In addition to higher growth, fertility rates are rising and becoming unsustainable. In other words, with all of the above we are not managing our natural or human resources.
Morales said that the economy is not just doing business, but managing everything, including natural resources and, from his point of view, in San Miguel we have done very poorly. However, he commented that there are other nearby municipalities that have done worse, such as Querétaro, León, and Celaya.
These are the five types of environmental management that we have: water management, land management, food management —which is produced less and less in the municipality—, biodiversity management, and energy management, which is not only electric but trophic levels. But these levels are completely unbalanced according to Morales and are one of the reasons why the water lily has reproduced in Presa Allende.
Morales said that 22 years ago, when he was director of Environment and Ecology, there was a similar situation with a water lily outbreak, but it could be controlled immediately because it was in a different context, a different time, when there were fewer people and less pollution.
According to Morales’ perspective, the growth of the water lily can be prevented with systematic planning that takes into account the actions that have already been done and creates ways to ensure that we do not generate massive waste. In addition, the extraction work should not be done manually because the problem is more serious than it seems, and unfortunately people do not realize it.
He mentioned the above because last Sunday, April 24, a group of approximately 30 people, members of the Save the Allende Dam campaign and the fishing community, gathered at the dam to clean the water lily on the bank of the reservoir, in the part which is reached via Otomí and San Miguel Viejo.
Some days ago, this group launched the invitation on Facebook as an urgent call to combat the infestation and reproduction of the water lily. According to this organization, this plague has put the fishing community at risk and has also threatened the health of birds, the fauna of the region, as well as public health. People came with rakes and gloves, and were working in the area for approximately five hours.
Morales stressed that there are so many thousands of tons of lily that not even the entire population of San Miguel—around 230,000 inhabitants—could clear it, not even if they were working 24 hours a day every day for a year, and the problem is not solely one of size. But, although it is complex, there is a probability of solving it.
First of all, Morales calculated that the water lily has covered about 65 percent of the dam’s surface and is killing off deep-rooted and surface algae. According to Morales, right now we are in the worst moment to do anything, because it is the lily’s reproductive season, but it has to start now because the rainy season is approaching.
According to Morales’ proposal, the first step that must be done is to lower the level of the dam so that part of the infestation will be on the earth, away from the water. Then he proposes to set up some retainers —as they are technically called. That is, to make inflated plastic ropes or any other resistant material so that they are buoyant. What these retainers do is try to push the lily towards the banks of the dam while its level drops. Then you have to wait between one and two weeks for the sun to dry the land so tractors can be used (hoping that it will not rain). Then machines or tractors will turn over the compacted plants so that the birds arrive and eat the worms and other bugs. With this process, the use of the water lily as a soil fertilizer and compost can be promoted.
In short: you have to invest in retention, then talk to CONAGUA (National Water Commission) Laja Begoña to lower the dam; later, you have to bring in the tractors and harrows and try to contain the lily. It cannot be completely eliminated but it can be controlled and lowered by half to keep it on the banks of the dam and not over the entire surface.Another point of Morales’ proposal is the signing of commitments by new subdivisions that are not yet open to the public and other communities for the creation of residual water treatment plants.
Finally, Morales very briefly drafted a public manifesto where he calls on the community to join in fighting this «serious environmental crisis,” which is shown below:
«Serious environmental crisis in the lower part of the Upper Laja River-Allende Dam,” mainly due to the excessive discharge of sewage or residual water which has resulted in an infestation of water lily, which covers more than two-thirds of the reservoir’s surface, from La Cieneguita to the dam’s curtain. Therefore, he urges:
1. Address this situation seriously and with a sense of urgency, by the authorities of the three levels and with the support of civil society.
2. Stop dumping sewage into the tributaries and into the Laja River itself, until we have zero wastewater flows. Rivers are not drains!
3. Communities such as Atotonilco, with up to 4,000 inhabitants, must now start to prepare for a wastewater treatment plant, as well as the developments around the Cieneguita-Xoté micro-basin.
4. The San Miguel urban area wastewater treatment plant must treat 100 percent of its wastewater and not less than 25 percent as is the case today.
5. Each of the new urban developments must discharge their wastewater to new treatment plants.
6. The water lily must be managed where: a) it is contained (with ropes or retained) on the edge of the basin of the Allende Dam, mainly in its inlets, to prevent free propagation. b) The water lily is removed to the banks and processed there; Crushing-sinking or permanently floating pollutes more than three times more than a sewage toilet discharge, with BOD greater than 1,050. c) Maintain and expand lily-free water surface areas, mainly in riverbeds and tributary streams.
7. Convene working groups between government authorities and organized civil society and groups to work on a continuous agenda, at least on the points mentioned above. Plus: human load capacities for urban development and tourism, real urban development against the myth of irremediable urban growth, examples: Calviá, Catalonia, Spain; Vail and Aspen, Colorado, USA. To review critically the environmental impact (in space time and ecological, cultural, economic, social and governance impacts) of the urban growth without environmental planning or ecological-territorial development to extend the urban sprawl of San Miguel de Allende to the north and Dolores to the south, around its highway.
The water lily infestation in this region is a cry from the environment for us to listen to and respond with sustainability to improve the ecological balance in the ecosystems that we have degraded intensely in the last 70 years. Think globally, act locally.
