Highest altitude lake in the world is threatened by industrial pollution.
Lake Titicaca is the largest fresh water reserves and is the second-largest surface lake in South America.
For many centuries in the vicinity of the lake people lived, they used water from the lake and fished it the fish. There now people live, but untreated waste water from two dozen nearby towns and illegal gold mines in the Andes dropping to 15 tons of mercury per year into the river leading to the lake. In fish from the lake found high levels of mercury, cadmium, zinc and copper, and the locals eat it.
More than 400,000 tourists annually visit lake Titicaca in Peru, but first they call in the city of Juliaca, which produces 200 tons of garbage a day, most of it discharged into the river flowing into the lake. Environmental activist Maruja Inquilla warned local residents about the dangers lurking in their food and water. She said, “If frogs could talk, they would say that this water is killing us.”
Before the election in 2011, the future President Ollanta Humala has promised to eliminate pollution and to build a sewage treatment plant. In the area of lake Titicaca for his voted 79 percent of the electorate, but promises he never fulfilled. The governments of Peru and Bolivia signed an agreement on allocating $ 500 million to fix the problem of pollution of lake Titicaca, although the details of the agreement are vague.
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