BOLIVIA-PERU:
Titicaca Truths Revealed
By Bernarda Claure*
BAHÍA DE COHANA, Bolivia
(Tierramérica) - Nobody
doubts that Lake
Titicaca, a watershed
and resource shared by
Bolivia and Peru, is
polluted. But a
half-century after the
two governments realised
there was a problem
there are still no
detailed studies of the
state of its waters.
The six most heavily
damaged sites include
Bahía de Cohana, in the
western Bolivian
department of La Paz,
and Peru's Bahía
Interior de Puno, in the
department of the same
name.
The problem is enormous
natural ponds filled
with a toxic cocktail of
sewage, organic
pollution and industrial
and mining waste.
The lack of sewage
treatment itself has
become a health threat
to the nearby
communities.
"We only use the water
to wash clothes," Sonia
Copa told Tierramérica
near the town of Argachi,
an hour's drive from
Bahía de Cohana. "We
don't even give it to
the animals because
sometimes it's red,
sometimes it's black,
and it smells bad."
In Argachi, families
have opted to dig wells
to get water. "We are
scared of falling ill.
Animals have died from
drinking the river
water," said Felipe
Chura, owner of a small
herd of cattle.
Despite numerous
investigations and
studies, the problem has
not been dealt with in a
systematic way, so it is
impossible to fully
assess the environmental
conditions and future
impacts, Alberto
Giesecke, an engineer
with Peru's National
Environment Council,
told Tierramérica.
According to Giesecke,
the main problem on the
Peruvian side are the
effluents and solid
waste from the nearby
communities. On the
Bolivian side, polluted
water flows from the
western municipalities
of Viacha, Laja and
Pucarani and from the
industrial city of El
Alto -- together
representing nearly one
million people
Lake Titicaca, whose
name means "rock of the
jaguar" or "rock of the
feline" in the Aymara
language, is located on
the border of the two
South American
countries, in the Andes
mountains. It is the
world's highest
navigable lake, at 3,810
metres above sea level.
Its waters are
crystalline blue across
most of its 8,562 square
kilometre surface (3,790
sq km belong to Bolivia
and 4,772 to Peru).
Among its native
wildlife are several
species of duck, fish
like the endangered
suche (Trichomycterus
rivulatus) and karachi
(of the Orestias genus),
and the giant Lake
Titicaca frog (Telmatobius
culeus).
Among the aquatic
vegetation are the
bulrush, a flowering
seaweed known as yana
llacho, and duckweed.
More than 25 rivers flow
into Titicaca. Pollution
is believed to have
affected "a small
percentage" of them,
Luis Alberto Sánchez,
coordinator in Bolivia
of the Lake Titicaca
Binational Authority,
told Tierramérica.
Between the information
from diverse
institutions and the
perceptions of local
residents, a kind of
puzzle has emerged.
"Public, academic and
private institutions are
involved, but the
monitoring systems are
not continuous or
sustainable, so the
information is not
standardised," said
Giesecke.
"Perhaps we have to
introduce a more modest
approach, practice basic
monitoring. As one
author said, content
ourselves with reaching
a level of optimum
ignorance and not seek
to know everything there
is to know," added the
official. To take on the
problem, the United
Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) is
promoting a binational
plan to establish an
official environmental
monitoring network "to
make the information
uniform, with just one
protocol," said
biologist Evelyn Taucer,
of the ecology and
conservation graduate
studies centre at the
Universidad Mayor de San
Andrés (UMSA) in La Paz.
"We are identifying six
locations for the
monitoring stations,
based upon which we will
conduct physical,
biological and chemical
tests of the water and
study aquatic
biodiversity," she told
Tierramérica. What is
needed, she added, "is
that the efforts are
channelled into one
single network that
provides official
information for decision
making."
Both in Bolivia and
Peru, municipal
governments, city
councils, ministries and
subordinate offices, as
well as the Binational
Authority, are involved
in Titicaca issues.
Bahía de Cohana is a
four-hour drive from La
Paz, in the lower lake
region of Bolivia. One
doesn't have to be an
expert to notice that
the Sewanka River, which
follows part of the road
to this cattle-raising
town of some 1,000
inhabitants, is dirty
and that the lake gives
off a foul odour.
According to limnologist
Roberto Apaza, of UMSA's
environmental quality
laboratory,
sedimentation, the
proliferation of
duckweed and the
consequent reduction of
spaces for birds and
fish are a fact that the
local people have to
deal with.
This is already being
discussed in schools.
"They teach us about the
water pollution," said
Lucio Pari, 14, who
knows that the duckweed
and bulrushes have high
concentrations of
cadmium, lead and
arsenic, as shown by a
study by the UMSA lab.
Duckweed, in the midst
of which Andean geese
frolic on the lake,
absorbs the most
pollutants. The plant is
used as fertiliser,
while bulrushes are used
as livestock feed.
"A considerable number
of cattle are not
butchered in the
municipal
slaughterhouses, but at
clandestine, outdoor
sites," and the remains
"are dumped directly
into the Katari River,"
wrote researcher
Francisco Fontúrbel in
an overview of
ecotourism in Bahía de
Cohana.
Such practices
contribute to the spread
of the liver fluke
parasite, a flatworm
that may have killed at
least three people in
the area, according to
Esteban Zapana, a former
municipal official.
Some of the proposed
solutions to Lake
Titicaca's ills come
from non-governmental
organisations.
For example, there is
"anaerobic biodigestion
technology", a process
of fermentation of human
and animal excrement and
of agricultural waste to
generate biogas, says
Oliver Campero, director
of a development
technologies project
that has research
stations in Tiwanaku,
some 70 km from Cohana.
The Bolivian government
plans to reduce
pollution in the bay by
25 percent and ensure
that the water consumed
by local communities in
the area is potable.
The results will soon be
available on a bidding
process for
infrastructure to
collect water from a
runoff site, treat it
and channel it back,
according to Ramiro
Villarroel, director of
natural resources and
the environment in La
Paz.
If the contamination is
not reversed, said
Fontúrbel's report, the
Titicaca watershed
"could begin to
collapse, interrupting
the food chain and
turning the shores of
Titicaca into swamp."
(*Originally published
by Latin American
newspapers that are part
of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is
a specialised news
service produced by IPS
with the backing of the
United Nations
Development Programme
and the United Nations
Environment Programme.)
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