Enriquillo Lake’s growth must be dealt with, scientists warn

Santo Domingo. – The biologist Gladys Rosado suggests a contingency plan for farming and tourism projects in safe zones to deal with the new reality around the ever expanding Enriquillo Lake.

She said the lake zone needs an evacuation route because its growth could lead to other tragedies such as the one of its affluent Blanco river in Jimaní in 2004, which killed more than 1,000 people.

As to new production projects Rosado suggested the use of new water species which have appeared, such as crabs.

The biologist, speaking on Enriquillo’s situation in the symposium “Impacts and perspective of solution” hosted by the Santo Domingo State University (UASD), reiterated climatic change, the deterioration of irrigation structures which fail to control surface waters, as some of the possible causes of its expansion.

As a possibility she also noted seismic activity which could break open new flow routes for aquifers.

As to the lake growth’s social impact, the economist Joaquin Diaz warned that most of the 2,000 families which live in the Enriquillo lake shore can fall into extreme poverty, because it’s a zone with already high levels of poverty.