Lake Chapala

And the West thinks we have water issues...

Lake Chapala is Mexico's largest lake. At least that's the case when it's full of water. The lake is in Ajijic, a small but lively community full of expatriats (the locals call them jubilados). Since the early 1900s, Lake Chapala has been a community of writers and artists. D. H. Lawrence moved here in 1923 and worked to finish "The Plumed Serpent." About 15 years later, W. Somerset Maugham lived here, while working on and finished "The Razor's Edge." In the 1940s, Tennessee Williams came to town.

Over the years, various writers have come and gone, keeping the literary scene somewhat lively. Now there are other kinds of scenes built up by U.S. and Canadian retirees, moving in and, as the locals proclaim, running up the price of property. I could go on about the various laments and problems that such growth has on a place like this, but it'd be a worn and a too-familiar drone for you, dear reader. We live in the West -- and many of us in a tourist town -- where we encounter the same problems. Don't get me started on the Texans...

Anyway, the lake is about an hour northwest of Guadalajara, and whether it will exist much longer remains in question; it's dying. In recent years, the lake has lost its health due to several problems:

Dehydration. The lake has come close twice to drying up. Entirely. It happened first in 1950 and again in 1980. There was such a small amount of water that people could drive their cars on the lake bed.

Muddy water.

High phosophorus levels. At last test, the level was 80 times higher than the max concentrations that the USEPA recommends (yes, I know we are talking about Mexico). The chemical levels are so wacked out in the environment here that weeds actually grow on the power lines abovehead.

Algal plants. Which make the water smelly and icky-tasting. The bad thing is, the algae isn't (or wasn't in the past decade) treated to remove the algae before being delivered to Guadalajara's potable water system. The good news is, the algae wasn't toxic. But it explains why the water stinks when it comes out of the shower head in Guadalajara. Suffice it to say, I do not like taking showers in Guadalajara. I really makes me gag. Blech.

Heavy metals. Cyanide. Chromium. Lead. Mercury. I'm starting to itch just thinking about it. Speaking of itching...

Aquatic weeds. My god the weeds in this lake are everywhere. Filling in the water. Soaking up the water and the oxygen. Making the shoreline recede farther and farther from its orginal place. Water hyacinth -- once deliberately used for ornamental purposes -- take up more than 1/4 of the lake. The weeds affect anything and everyone relying on the lake. They inhibit growth for fish food. Fisherman can't make a living off the lake anymore. Property values of the houses that line the lake shore (and there are many, especially since the lake is embraced by small villages) are decreasing (even though people in Ajijic talk about how the Americans moving in are actually driving up the cost of housing). There are a lot of insects. The list goes on.

Fewer fish. The biodiversity of the fish has decreased so drastically that fishermen who once relied on the lake for their livings are in dire straits. Boats sit abandoned on the lakeshore. Stuck in mud and sure to never float again.

There is a multitude of reasons for such an unhealthy lake. And there is nearly an equal amount of ideas of how to help restore the lake's health. But true to Mexican standards of government agencies and politicians not working together, not much is getting done.

Lake Chapala is one of the freelance stories that I am working on for publication. So, I'm not going to write a mini-book here. I'll let anyone (who is interested) know when and where the story will appear. It's an intriguing story.