TEQUILA BYPRODUCT SPILL FOULS MEXICAN RESERVOIR

When Jesus Solis noticed the waters of the reservoir where he had spent his entire life beginning to darken and a rotten odor taking hold, he was overcome with fear. Within weeks those initial concerns were confirmed as tens of thousands of dead fish floated to the surface, apparent victims of a spill of tequila distilling waste into a western Mexico water source.

The 44-year-old fisherman watched for days as the fish he had helped raise and that he relied on for income went belly up along the shores of the San Onofre reservoir in Jalisco state.

Authorities determined that millions of liters of a residue known as vinasse created in tequila’s distillation spilled into the Las Animas creek that flows into the reservoir. Jalisco is the heart of Mexico’s tequila industry. Some 40 percent of the state’s industrially cultivated land is covered in the blue agave used to make tehe quila.

The environmental disaster has shaken the residents of Ayotlan, who fear the contaminated waters could pose a threat to their crops and devastate their local fishing cooperative whose families have lost their aquaculture investment and been left without income.

Orion Flores, director of Attention to Socio-environmental Conflicts for the state of Jalisco’s environmental protection agency, said 60 to 80 tons of dead fish had been removed from the reservoir. added that the die-off could continue for days because there was significant aquaculture there.

Aldo Castaneda Villanueva, a professor and researcher specializing in water management at the University of Guadalajara, said “it could take years” until the small reservoir is cleaned up.

The state environmental agency, territorial development office, state water commission and environmental prosecutor’s office said this month they would regularly monitor the reservoir and stream’s water to determine what could aid in its cleanup. They also opened investigations to determine responsibility for the spill.

The investigation is still in its early stages, but some state authorities and Ayotlan residents blame a company that treats waste from the area’s tequila-producing industry. The plant was closed at the end of September after an inspection revealed that one of its lagoons holding vinasse had a rupture in one of its walls, Flores said.

REFUGIO RUIZ AP Boats of a fishermen’s cooperative sit idle on the shore of the San Onofre reservoir in Ayotlan, Mexico, earlier this month.