Groups Working Together To Solve Pollution And Poverty At Lake Atitlan

Efforts uncoordinated in past, but Santa Cruz por el Lago. Antigua Tours and Save Lake Atitlan Mission want unity.

By Greg Szymanski, JD
March 28, 2010

A tour company in Antigua and a group of local business owners in Lake Atitlan are trying to raise awareness and funds to end pollution and poverty at was once known as the most beautiful lake in the world.

Admitting efforts to correct the cyanobacteria problem threatening the lake’s very existence have been ‘uncoordinated’ due to economic and political stumbling blocks, the group at Atitlan called Santa Cruz por el Lago is trying to change things, bring people together to solve the problems.

̈Locals, both Kakchikel indigenous, ladinos and local gringos, are all working together as volunteers trying to sort out the threats our community might pose towards our lake’s health,” said a representative of the committee Santa Cruz por el Lago.

Antigua Tours owner, Elizabeth Bell, is also lending a hand, putting some of the profits of her company behind the Save The Lake campaign.

“Antigua Tours by Elizabeth believes that it is our planet and our responsibility to preserve it. We have been very active in preserving Antigua over the past 40 years through efforts in looking for a balance between preservation and economic development,”aid owner Elizabeth Bell who started her company in 1992.

“While a group of people have worked for years trying to preserve Lake Atitlan, it took the lake’s ecological imbalance, particularly in 2009, to get everyone on board to preserve it. A true blessing in disguise! We join Save Lake Atitlan Mission directly in efforts to save Lake Atitlan. We do this by donating 5% of our lake reservations and in networking to save the lake!”

The company is putting its financial and moral support behind groups like Santa Cruz por el Lago, Save Lake Atitlan Mission and others, all trying to unite people behind one common cause: end pollution and poverty.

Save Lake Atitlan Mission is starting a new web site, hitting the web Monday, trying to unite people together from all over the world. Atitlan Mission will also have a local presence in Atitlan, opening up a Mission Hall in order to help overty conditions improve on a daily basis.

“We want to galvanize and bring good people together, using our web site as a world wide meeting place for everyone now involved in trying to solve the serious problems there,” said the head of Save Lake Atitlan Mission at www.savelakeatitlan.com

“There are many good people working to solve this problem, now working in many small groups. We want to feature all these people on our web site as well as raise more awareness and funds to solve problems.”

Adding to the message of unity, Santa Cruz por el Lago had this to say:

The worst effects are the contribution of phosphates in the black and gray water from LOCAL drainages, municipal run offs, pilas going directly in the lake, phosphate soaps used to wash inside the lake, which are not, in most cases, caused by tourism.

Most hotels around the lake, except for some in Panajachel, do not use the public drainage. For instance here in Santa Cruz business owners and ̈chaleteros̈ are the only ones who pay property taxes and hence contribute to the municipal budget. Still we build our own septic, pump our own water and take care of our own solid waste.

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