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Bubba

Jun 5, 2004, 2:02 PM

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Lake Chapala and Mexico

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I am posting this message on General Forum rather than the Lake Chapala Forum because the future of this largest of natural lakes in Mexico concerns us all. The seriousness with which the Mexican government takes this depoiled natural resource bespeaks its commitment to its environment overall and, thus, its people.

Let's look at Lake Chapala in the context of a headline article in the "Comunidad" Section of this morning's Guadalajara paper MURAL.

Lake Chapala is huge. It fills 114,000 hectares of land at its capacity. Today, because of beneficial rains during this and the previous rain seasons it fills 100,671 hectares of land. Looking beyond hectares covered and measuring cubic centimeters of water volume, we find that there were, as of yesterday, 3,570,000,000 cubic meters of water in Lake Chapala. There were countless volumes of water dumped upon the lake by torrential rainslastnight so this statistic has certainlyimproved since the publication of the MURAL article.

In terms of water capacity, the lake is at 45% of capacity as of yesterday. Total capacityis 7,897,200,000 CM whatever that means. I think that that level of capacity means that at 100% of capacity, we will need gills to breath.

We are now seeing the return of the cyclical rains that have refilled the lake over the centuries or the beneficial affects of the Huichol rituals which threaten those of us with Lakeside properties with inundation. God Willing!

PBGollaz

Jun 5, 2004, 2:37 PM

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Re: [Bubba] Lake Chapala and Mexico

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Good post! Bubba,

In other recent news affecting Lake Chapala, the head of the national water board reported earlier this week that a study by the Universidad de Guadalajara shows that the lake is likely to reach as much as 98 percent of its capacity by the end of this year's rainy season. That's due to a big push by Mother Nature and is in spite of continued resistance by the State of Guanajuato to implementing its part of a basin-wide water compact to save the lake.

In today's edition of El Informador José de Jesús Álvarez Carrillo, of the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Semarnat) in Jalisco, mentioned that a document was signed last Thursday for the control of aquatic weeds (particularly lirio) in the Chapala drainage basin. The work is scheduled to begin upriver, to protect the lake from aquatic weeds washed downriver during the height of the coming rainy season.

The program, titled Control de Malezas Acuáticas, will involve an investment of 30 million pesos this year -- 20 million supplied by the federal government and the remaining 10 million by the State of Jalisco. It is estimated that this first phase of the program will eliminate about four thousand hectares of the 14 thousand hectares of lirio that presently exists.

Patrick
Zapopan, Jalisco, México

NEOhio

Jun 5, 2004, 7:46 PM

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Re: [Patricio B] Lake Chapala and Mexico

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This is really good news. We have watched as our own Lake Erie has come back from the edge of cesspool status. Ten years ago you didn't go to the beaches, the yuck factor was putrid and nobody had any faith in the fixes proposed. We had zebra mussels, couldn't put a pleasaure boat in the water that it wasn't covered in them. Erosion problems galore, too!

Today as I drove along the lake road from western Cleveland to the marina in Huron, an hour and 15 each way, I thought about the conversations here about your lake. What I see today I could not ever have imagined - hardely anyone but the environmentalists could imagine this - the recovery is complete.

Everybody who can afford it wants a place in the vital little villages that used to be poverty-level living. The growth is amazing - the new businesses of all kinds - the developments, my gosh - politicians have even been heard to lament the continued existence of the Ford plant in Lorain, because although the ore boat basin is now a lovely city parkway with $400-500K house along what was "trash town" - that damn plant is still taking up that prime land along the Lake - how come the one in Lima closed and not this ours, we could use the lake land??? It is insane.

So this brings me to my point for discussion - what is going to happen when the Lake recovers? Do you forsee the Mexican government to get on the "fix it up" wheel - given that Mexican citizens have a former relationship with the area as a recreational refugee?

What is the critical mass of north americans before they establish restraints on development, who will protect the grazing rights etc....the recovery brings a lot of questions with it.

Best wishes for the lake and its environs.