Despite Threats To Her Life, Eloyda Mejía Raises Awareness About Industrial Mining At Lake Isabal

Lake Isabal and Atitlan in Guatemala have much in common: pollution and poverty have no end in sight!

By Greg Szymanski, JD
June 8, 2010

Not too far down the road going east from Lake Atitlan in Guatemala is an indigenous Mayan population centered around Lake Isabal.

Isabal is one of the larger lakes in Central America and for centuries acted as a main hub for fishing and agricultural.

However, like Lake Atitlan, the lake is extremely polluted, resulting in extreme poverty for the indigenous people.

The problems at both lakes have the same result — poverty and pollution — but the cause are a bit different.

At Lake Atitlan, where over 200,000 indigenous people rely on it for survival, the the 30,000 acre volcanic crater lake was engulfed recently by a green toxic algae cyanobacteria scum, making the water undrinkable.

Harmful effects of raw sewage and toxic fertilizer, unchecked for decades, have been two of the main causes of over-pollution.

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