Nicaragua has started to clean up the huge source of water in this country, after dumping its untreated wastewater into Lake Managua for more than 80 years.

“For 82 years we have turned Central America’s largest lake into the world’s biggest toilet,” Jaime Incer Barquero, a scientist and environmentalist, told IPS. “We poison it every day with tons of faeces and garbage, and now, at this pace, it will take 50 years or more to salvage.”

He said, however, that the new Augusto C. Sandino wastewater treatment plant inaugurated by President Daniel Ortega in late February on the shores of lake Managua is a huge step towards the aim of cleaning up the country’s water sources. The wastewater from 60 chemical companies and Managua’s 1.2 million people has been dumped untreated into the lake from 17 drains since 1927.

Nicaraguan Vice President Jaime Morales said the project to clean up Lake Managua is “one step more towards compliance with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

Nicaragua will have to provide clean water and sanitation to at least 2.5 million of its 5.8 million people by 2015, to meet the drinking water target, one of the eight MDGs adopted by the international community in 2000.

Related news: Nicaragua: Enacal inaugura planta de tratamiento de aguas residuales, Boletin de Noticias, marzo 2009

Source: José Adán Silva, IPS, 16 Mar 2009

Tags: latin america & caribbean, wastewater treatment