Removing water lilies in San Miguel de Allende Dam

Published March 15th, 2022

Municipal authorities of San Miguel de Allende informed that they are working on the first stage of the removal of the aquatic lily that has invaded the Allende dam of said municipality, which they attribute to the excessive and uncontrolled housing growth that has taken place in recent years in San Miguel de Allende.

As a result of the work carried out by the Municipal Government in response to this environmental problem, it has been determined that this aquatic plant is only a symptom of the damage suffered by this body of water and one of its main causes is the number of new housing developments that have discharged their wastewater uncontrolled in the last five years, which were deliberately developed without control or environmental impact considerations.

“The lirio in the dam is a symptom, the disease is the poor management of the Laja River basin; we had two years of very strong droughts and the levels of the dam dropped considerably.

The discharges from livestock, agriculture, and the excessive growth of the last four years with more than 100 authorized subdivisions in San Miguel de Allende and its periphery nourished the reservoir, and then when the rains came and the levels rose, the perfect storm arose which resulted in the problem we have today”, expressed the Director of Environment and Sustainability, Alejandro Castro.

However, and in spite of the fact that the dams are property of the Federal Government, so far municipal authorities have reported that they have intervened with tangible actions to contain the reproduction of the aquatic lily.

“It is a regional problem, it is not just one, it is not a single cause, there are several and there are several people involved”, pointed out the municipal official.

However, he added, the Municipal Government’s exhortation to other authorities and government agencies has not been echoed.

In addition to the two Temporary Employment Days, 150 fishermen from the dam were hired and equipped, the Municipality successfully managed specialized extraction machinery, with three bands: gathering, collection, and extraction of the plants.

This machinery began its work last week and the extraction rate is being measured against the growth rate of the lily, since during the hot season its reproduction is exponential, in order to calculate the approximate time of mechanical and manual extraction.