I sent the story of the Colorado River to an Argentinean list and this is what
I received as a response. The case of the Laguna de Guanacache in the mid60s,
and now that of the Laguna de Llancanelo are other examples of brutality in
water resource management. The first one gave matter for a novel, "Donde haya
Dios", in the 60s
------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 17:11:26 -0300
From: "Ricardo Ojeda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: pol-cien : (Fwd) [CrashList] The Sewage Dump That Was the
Colorado River
...y es lo que pasa en tantos lugares con los humedales...este el caso de las
otrora Lagunas de Guanacache, en el desierto de Lavalle, en Mendoza, y
alrededor
de las cuales se desarrolló toda una cultura de pescadores, tejedores de balsas
y plasmada en las pinturas de Fidel Roig...hoy, por el mal uso y abuso de las
aguas del Río San Juan y Mendoza es practicamente inexistente, o muy pobre, la
diversidad biológica y el legado cultural del area...
...otra, la Laguna de Llancanelo, uno de los humedales de desierto y sitios
RAMSAR mas importantes de América Latina, sufre las presiones de REPSOL (y que
cuenta con guiños del gobierno provincial) para incrementar la explotación de
petroleo que ya desarrollan en el área...en esta laguna ocurren unas 150
especies de aves,como flamencos, cisnes de cuello negro y varios migrantes del
hemisferio norte...
ver a continuación sobre Llancanelo...
REPSOL-YPF, an international OIL -COmpany, is planning to start the
exploration and explotation of petroleum in Llancanelo, Mendoza, Argentina.
Llancanelo is a wetland that is in the RAMSAR list, wich means it is a wetland
of international importance. Thousands of birds live and nest there, many
migratory birds visit the place, even endangered species nest there. The local
government says the drilling of wells inside the "protected" area will not
affect the enviroment, wich is not the opinion of many researchers. IT is
important for the world community to know that this is taking place. Please
pass this information to whoever you may think may be interested before it is
too late. Below is some information about Llancanelo extracted from the Ramsar
web site. Thank you very much for your attention
5. Laguna de Llancanelo
Geographical Coordinates: 35°45'S 69°08'W Area: 65,000ha
Location: Mendoza Province, Malargüe Department
Date of Ramsar Designation: 8 November 1995
Other International Designations: None
National Designations: Provincial faunal reserve
Principal Features: An endorheic, saline lake in a semi-desert environment,
situated at about 1,300 m.a.s.l. in a depression at the foot of the central
Andes mountains. The maximum area of open water has reached 65,000ha, but this
is currently reduced to almost a third of this size. Reduction of lake volume
has resulted from the decrease in incoming water from the Río Malargüe and its
tributary streams which used to maintain a natural balance with the water lost
through evaporation. There are seasonal variations in the position of the lake
margins and the depth of open water (average 30cm). All incoming waters
originate from mountain snowmeltdown the Río Malargüe or through several springs
to the west and northwest of the lake, thus the level of accumulation of snow in
winter determines the seasonal fluctuation of lake volume. In the areas around
the lake where water usually accumulates (generally clay soil) often forming
small semi-permanent pools lasting from days to sometimes several months), a
shrub layer of Atriplex sp. and Prosopis strombulifera is found. In areas where
salts but not water accumulate, there is an important community comprising
Suaeda divaricata and Atriplex lampa, forming an extensive but open cover around
the northern edges of the lake. Most of the vegetation in the Llancanelo basin
is xerophilous or halophilous. A small but representative mountain scrub flora
reaches the area around the lake from the north, as does Patagonian steppe from
the south. The Llancanelo system supports populations of up to 150,000
waterbirds (belonging to 74 species) in summer. There are 24 regularly nesting
bird species, including colonies of 10,000 Phoenicopterus chilensis nests, 1,500
Cygnus melancoryphus nests and mixed colonies of up to 400 Ardeidae nests. The
lake hosts 15 migratory bird species in summer, including more than 12,000
Charadriidae. Concentrations of 24,000 Cygnus melancoryphus and 8,000 Coscoroba
coscoroba take refuge on the lake's waters while flightless during postbreeding
moult. The endangered Chlamyphorus truncatus lives in sandbanks and the
endangered endemic Tympanoctomys barrerae is found in halophytic areas.
(Criteria 1b,2b,2c,3a,3b).
Conservation Issues: Surrounding areas are only very sparsely inhabited by
humans. There are no buildings in the vicinity of the lake, but for more than
100 years the land has been used for ranching (cattle, sheep, goats and horses).
Most of the rearing pens or stables are situated in fields away from the aquatic
system (but still within the proposed site). Grazing is only significant in some
sectors. The provincial government owns the 42,000ha Laguna Llancanelo
Provincial Faunal Reserve, and some 70% of the area occupied by the wetland is
legally protected. Hunting and fishing on the lake were common practices until
1980, but they declined significantly following the decree creating the reserve.
Owing to the precedent of hunting and fishing, and the abundance of fauna,
poaching remains a potential problem. The mammals Myocastor coypus, Dusicyon
culpaeus, D. griseus, Lagostomus maximus and Zaedyus pichiy (a Patagonian
armadillo) are target species. Phoenicopterus chilensis is sometimes purchased
from local inhabitants by wholesalers who later illegally export them to
neighbouring countries. There is some illegal fishing. However since 1993, the
permanent presence of park wardens has helped to control poaching. A management
plan is currently being drawn up. Land use (ranching/agricultural activities) is
more intense in the rest of the basin outside the Ramsar site, and towards the
village of Malargüe. Water from the Río Malargüe is used before reaching
Llancanelo and distributed according to irrigation rights regulated by the
Mendoza Province Directorate General for Irrigation. This water provides the
domestic supply for central Malargüe Department, with the remainder distributed
for agriculture and ranching. Increasing use is affecting the lake's level and
management efforts seek to maintain a minimum flow into the lake. There has not
been a study on carrying capacity of the fields for grazing animals, nor an
assessment of any other grazing impact. Oil operations in the area are regulated
(environmental protection and impact assessment) by the Malargüe Directorate of
Renewable Natural Resources, through environmental health companies and the
Inti-Natura Cooperative Ltd. A former uranium processing plant is located one
kilometre northeast of the central square in Malargüe Department. This plant
produced a residual waste heap of considerable dimension (400m long by 300m wide
and up to 6m high) which is located in the area penetrated by alluvial fans of
the Río Malargüe and Arroyo Chacay. The branches of these watercourses discharge
in the Llancanelo fluvio-lacustrine plain. There is a potential threat that
pollution will reach the phreatic aquifer via a subterranean route. The
Argentinean Institute of Arid Zones Research (IADIZA) and the National Atomic
Energy Commission (CNEA) signed an agreement of scientific collaboration to
study whether contamination actually occurs, and what its ecosystem effects are
or would be. Historically, man introduced a number of tree species to provide
shade, but it is only the tamarisk Tamarix gallica which has succeeded in
becoming established in wetland areas with adverse effects. Lepus capensis
competitively displaces native herbivore species such as Dolichotis patagonum.
Another introduced species, Sus scrofa, causes significant damage to the soil,
and is sometimes a predator of bird eggs and young, especially colonial species
nesting on the deltaic channels and temporary pools. The lake is situated on a
large salt crust, which is protected from erosion when covered by water. When
the lake bed becomes exposed from receding water, winds seasonally reaching up
to 150km/h can pick up salts and deposit them over the surrounding area, with
consequent salinization of productive soils. The lake and its surroundings are
an educational tourism attraction, unique in an otherwise arid zone. In terms of
tourism, visits to the lake are currently restricted to guided walks and nature
trails. There is no infrastructure or plans for tourist developments, although
economically, the potential benefits of appropriately developed and managed
tourism appear interesting. No park infrastructure exists other than the
warden's post.
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 15/03/01, at 08:54 a.m., Gorojovsky wrote:
>Instructivo.
>------- Forwarded message follows -------
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tony Abdo)
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: [CrashList] The Sewage Dump That Was the Colorado River Send
>reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date sent: Wed, 14 Mar 2001
>21:09:00 -0600 (CST)
>
>March 14, 2001
>To the Last Drop
>Why the Colorado
>River Doesn't
>Meet the Sea
>
>Fifty years ago Aldo Leopold hailed the Colorado River delta as North
>America's greatest oasis: Two million acres of wetlands, cienegas,
>lagoons, tidal pools, jaguars and mesquite scrublands. Today it's a
>wasteland.
>
>The mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the Sea of Cortez. Its
>entire annual flow has diverted and spit out into hay fields, water
>fountains in front of Vegas hotels and thousands of golf courses. The
>Colorado has been sucked up to the last drop.
>
>It's once lush delta is now a salt flat, as barren as Carthage after
>Scipio Africanus took his revenge on Hannibal's homeland. This estuary
>used to be one of the wonders of the world: a vast wetland, teeming with
>more than 400 species of plants and animals. In fact, like the Nile,
>another desert river, nearly 80 percent of the riparian habitat for the
>entire Colorado River was once clustered near the mouth of the river.
>The shallow lagoons in the delta region are home to the Vacquita
>dolphin, at four feet in length the world's smallest, which is now on
>the brink of extinction, with only 100 animals known to exist. Dozens of
>other endemic species are in the same shape.
>
>And not just animals are in trouble. The delta was once the cultural
>mecca of the Copacha Indians, who made a good living fishing the
>estuary. But these days the fishing boats are beached and the Indians
>and Mexican residents are in grinding poverty, forced to work multiple
>jobs in distant tortilla factories, maquiladoras and wheat fields.
>
>Perhaps, the only legal framework as mind-numbing as the Law of Sea is
>the Law of the Colorado River. This thicket of deals, trade-offs,
>set-asides, subsidies and politically sanctioned thievery is nearly
>impenetrable to even the most seasoned and cyncial observer. But from
>the Mexican side of the border, the law is devastatingly simple: The US
>retains 95 percent of the Colorado River's water and Mexico gets what's
>left over. Most years this is about 1.5 million acre feet, roughly the
>same amount that Sonoran desert farmers were using to irrigate their
>bean and onion fields in 1922.
>
>Just before the Colorado crosses the US/Mexico border 75 percent of its
>flow is diverted into the All-American canal. From there the water is
>flushed into wasteful irrigation systems and it eventually trickles down
>into the Salton Sea, once an important stop on the Pacific flyway for
>migratory birds now a toxic soup of fertilizer and pesticide runoff.
>Instead of a bird paradise, the Salton Sea has become a killing ground,
>the avian equivalent of cancer alley.
>
>The water that eventually makes it to Mexico-much of it run-off from
>Arizona and California alfalfa and cotton fields-- is nearly as
>salt-laden and toxic as that in the Salton Sea. The situation is so
>extreme that the Bureau of Reclamation was compelled to build a $211
>"reverse-osmosis" desalination plant at Yuma, Arizona. But that plant,
>built in 1992, has only operated for a year.
>
>It comes down to consumption. People in the American southwest have yet
>to come to turns with the fact that they live in a desert. Per capita
>water use by the residents of California, Nevada and Arizona ranges up
>to as much as 200 gallons a day, more than 120 percent above the daily
>average for the rest of the nation. In Israel, for example, daily water
>consumption is less than 75 gallons.
>
>But as stark as these numbers are the thirst of California agribusiness
>is downright vampirish by comparison. Nearly, 80 percent of the
>Colorado's flow goes to corporate farming. Much of it to low-valued
>crops, such as alfalfa, cotton and even potatoes, that require lots of
>water. And because of their political clout they get the water cheap.
>Residents of Los Angeles, for example, pay as much as $600 per acre-foot
>for water from the Colorado. Big agribusiness is getting the same water
>for only $13 per acre foot.
>
>For nearly 150 years, the attitude of the water users of the American
>West has been guided by one dictate: "use it or lose it." The notion of
>allowing any water to remain in the river, for fish, for birds, for
>rafters, or for Mexico, has long been anathema to the water lords.
>
>"Scientists say we need at least one-percent to keep the Colorado River
>delta on life-support," says David Orr, of the Moab, Utah-based Glen
>Canyon Action Network. "That's why we started the One-percent for the
>Delta Campaign. We're asking all of the water users in the Colorado
>basin to donate one-percent of their allocation to help restore the
>delta. One percent's not a lot to ask, is it?"
>
>The question is rhetorical, because Orr knows better than anyone that
>the history of western water politics is based on this paradigm: use it
>or lose it. That's why the Colorado and its tributaries are dammed and
>diverted from Wyoming to the Mexican border. For the water lords'
>perspective, it's better to waste the water than to leave it in the
>river.
>
>That's how we got Glen Canyon Dam, one of the world's greatest
>desecrations of nature. This concrete plug flooded nearly 300 miles of
>the Colorado, destroying one of the most glorious canyons on earth. But
>the impounded water-the equivilent of two years of the river's entire
>flow--just sits there. Lake Powell is what's known as a storage
>reservoir. It's there to merely keep the water from reaching the Sea of
>Cortez where it would be "lost."
>
>But here's where we arrive at just how perverse the system has become.
>Because Lake Powell sits in the middle of a redrock desert, it loses a
>lot of water every year to evaporation. How much? More than a million
>acre feet. Moreover, another 350,000 acre feet are absorbed into the
>sandstone walls of the canyon. All told that represents ten percent of
>the Colorado's yearly flow. To put it in perspective: the evaporation
>loss in a single day is equal to the amount of water used by 17,000
>homes in Phoenix over an entire year.
>
>This grim fact has led to a radical but sensible idea: tear down Glen
>Canyon dam, restore the canyon and let the water return to the delta,
>where it can replenish that once teeming oasis. To promote this
>outlandishly appropriate plan, Orr and his colleagues have taken to the
>road in a water-tanker truck, stopping at dams along the course of the
>Colorado, taking a bucket of water from each stop and into pouring the
>holds of the tanker, ultimately delivering it to the Colorado Delta.
>
>They've named their truck "Vaquita Rescue", after the rare porpoise.
>This is the face of the new environmental movement: ethnically diverse,
>smart, theatrical, militant, and armed with a passion for social and
>ecological justice as well as a sense of humor--true descendents of
>their mentors David Brower and Edward Abbey.
>
>Riding along with the truck on several of its stops in the Four Corners
>region was Thomas Morris, the head of the Navajo Medicine Men's
>Association. Morris sees the damming of the Colorado as an assault on
>the cultural and spiritual roots of native people throughout the
>Southwest. Many of the sites most sacred to Morris and the Navajo tribe
>are now buried under hundreds of feet of water, destined for Phoenix
>subdivisions and golf courses.
>
>"Preserving our cultural traditions is more important but harder to do
>as time goes by," says Morris. "Indian people have worked hard to gain
>protection for our spiritual beliefs and practices, for the places where
>we make prayers, sing songs, and hold ceremonies. We have seen some
>progress, but there is still a long way to go. Imagine how it might feel
>if the great cathedrals were bulldozed for strip malls. The Bible tells
>how Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple. We can relate to
>that when we see our sacred places flooded and turned into tourist
>attractions."
>
>Taking down Glen Canyon dam and restoring flows to the mouth of the
>Colorado would be a big first step toward righting old wrongs on both
>sides of
>the border. CP
>
>From CounterPoint
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
>------- End of forwarded message -------
>
>Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------- End of forwarded message -------
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
