YAQUI VALLEY, Mexico — In June, residents of communities along the Yaqui River found various dead tilapia, carp and catfish floating on the banks of the river. According to Guadalupe Flores Maldonado, this was not a singular event. Fish die-offs have been happening for over a month now. Health officials said it was because of the heat, said Maldondo, a local from the Yaqui village of Loma de Bácum. “However, the heat has always been like this here, and there has never been a fish die-off. That makes us suspect that there is contamination.” For generations, the waters of the Yaqui River ran so clean that the Yaqui peoples could fish from its banks and drink safely from the stream. But in recent decades, a large portion of the river has dried up and the little water that remains is contaminated. Locals point to a host of unresolved problems, including overexploitation, dams and aqueducts diverting water, drought, mining waste, agrochemical abuse and poor waste management. Few scientific studies that analyze this contamination, its sources and its impact on locals exist, leaving a gap in assessing this environmental problem. Locals whom Mongabay spoke with say they feel left behind by the government and health officials. Maldonado first noticed a change in the quality of water in 2016, when several large companies began mining operations in the upper course of the Yaqui River. Over the years, arsenic contamination produced by these companies has leached into the water, leading to health complications and…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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