Lake worshipped by Incas now littered with toxic trash
LAKE TITICACA, PERU — Tucked between snow-capped mountains, it was once worshipped by the Incas, who proclaimed the deep blue waters the birthplace of the sun.
These days the shores of South America’s largest lake are littered with dead frogs, discarded paint buckets and bags of soggy trash. Less visible threats lurk in the water itself: toxic levels of lead and mercury.
The steady deterioration of the prized tourist destination has caused a rash of health problems among the 1.3 million people in Peru and Bolivia living near Lake Titicaca’s polluted banks.
Untreated sewage water drains from two dozen nearby cities and illegal gold mines high in the Andes dump up to 14 metric tons of mercury a year into a river leading to the lake.
“If the frogs could talk they would say, ‘This is killing me,’” said Maruja Inquilla, a local environmental activist who recently showed up at the Puno governor’ s house carrying plastic bags filled with hundreds of dead frog sin protest.
Increasing concern about pollution has prompted a series of scientific studies and promises of official action.
The governments of Peru and Bolivia signed a pact in January 2016 to spend more than $500 million to attack the problem, though the details were vague.
A year later, Peru’s new president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, pledged to construct 10 treatment plants around the lake, putting the cost at $437 million, “so that the most beautiful lake in the world is the cleanest lake in the world.”
But details of how the plants would be funded remain unclear and promises by politicians dating back two decades have so far gone unfulfilled.
Many of the more than 400,000 tourists who visit Lake Titicaca from Peru each year stop first in Juliaca, a town that produces 180 tons of trash daily, much of it winding up in a river that has turned into a conveyor belt of waste heading into the lake. Hypodermic needles, tires, old shoes and used diapers are scattered among the potato fields that line the giant lake’s shores. An additional 350,000 tourists visit the lake from Bolivia.
The blue waves that lure travelers also contain lead at levels above international standards, a 2014 government study found.
Doctor Jane M. Hightower, who specializes in internal medicine at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and is author of the book Diagnosis: Mercury: Money, Politics & Poison, reviewed the study and said that the numbers indicate the amount of mercury consumed by Titicaca residents would be “unacceptable.”
The study suggested officials limit some fish consumption, but inhabitants of the lake area said they weren’t informed about the study or told they could be consuming fish harmful to their health.
In the coastal hamlet of Coata, 23-year-old Maria Avila grew angry as she talked about the lake’s contamination. The mother of a 4-year-old living in an adobe house says she cannot bathe or drink the water without getting severe diarrhea or red spots on her skin.
“My ancestors have lived here more than 500 years. They have never gone through these things,” Avila said.