Lake Atitlan Poisoned

The satellite pic in natural color shows that Lake Atitlan in Guatemala has been invaded by cyanobacteria, a poisonous blue green algae that thrives in nutrient (sewage) rich warm waters. Fish must be dying by the millions, as well as cattle drinking from the Lake. The smell of masses of putrid algae must have killed the weekend tourism that used to arrive from Guatemala City.

About ten years ago, I had been invited by the Intendente Municipal of Panajachel, a turist village on the Atitlan Lake, Guatemala, to consult on the contamination of the Lake. I remember well the day spent in the area, because he organized a banquet in my honour and the cold beer and the beef was memorable. The European Union had donated a wastewater treatment plant and it was not working - why? Did the Europeans dump on us a badly designed plant? With your Israeli connections, could you write a letter to make them return to repair and run in the plant for at least a year? After the usual lies by the maintenance people, it became obvious that no water was inflowing, the plant was recirculating the same water. The plant was supposed to be fed by a pumping station on the other side of the river, and it was discovered that had no pumps (they had been sent to repair, probably stolen) and had no electricity (the Municipality had no budget for the plant and the pumping station operation, and was not paying the bill. They were decided to make the Europeans pay for it). There was a municipal sewage system, but the hotels were not connected to it dumped their sewage directly into the lake. Typically, the person in charge of the plant was a native of Panajachal who studied and worked in Germany and returned with a German wife. He spoke good German, and back home he had adopted the typical Latin attitude that nothing can be done. Effectively, nothing was done, as shown by the picture.