Thoughts on the Rio Ramis Survey...

Summer vacation is here!! After two grueling months in Quito studying Spanish and one grinding month in Puno, work is done and play is here! I met up with Elihu and Erin in Cuzco a week ago, and we took off for a circumnavigation of Azungate, an imposing massif a few hours southeast of Cuzco.

It was fun.

As much as i´d love to fill that in with tales of adventures, I should talk bout my work in Puno first, before I forget it all.

I set out to survey the vast majority of the Rio Ramis watershed with the goal of documenting what was screwing up the river. I planned on accomplishing this using both fancy scientific equipment and by interviewing the people who lived along the river and are intimately affected by changes in its quality. I conducted the survey with the local Riverkeeper Hector Flores, an Aymara guy from Isla Anapia, an island in the middle of Lago Titicaca. Over the course of six days, we sampled water, took photos, marked sites by GPS and interviewed people from Crucero to the mouth of the river in Lago Titicaca.



Here is what we found...
The river is seriously messed up. The vast majority is biologically dead. We didn´t find the first fishermen (and therefore fish) till nearly 2/3rds of the way downstream. This was a historically rich trout and pejerrey fishery. The only type of aquatic vegetation encountered was various types of algae. The lake waters, in contrast, still have abundant llachu and totora, the dominant native water plants.
Sediment contamination was prevalent throughout the river, but most obvious higher up. This basically means there is too much crud in the water, which interferes with fish breathing, photosynthesis, irrigation and any other way the water is used. Water levels were very low because it was the dry season, so we were able to observe the exposed river bed in many places. Exposed cobbles were systematically covered in a fine yellow powder called lamas. This is a result of mining operations upstream, which separate gold from waste rock by first pulverising the combination and then washing it with river water. The waste water goes downstream with a heavy load of pulverised rock, otherwise known as rock flour. Besides the lamas, this also produces a classic milky turquoise color in the water, similar to glacial-fed rivers.
But sediments were not the only culprits. Each town along the river had its own untreated sewage flowing into the river. The town dump was usually located right next to the sewage outlet, contributing huge quantities of trash of every type. Heavy metals such as mercury are presumably being washed downriver from the mines as well, although we lacked the equipment to measure them. Clothes are regularly washed in the river, sending streams of detergent downstream as well. Insecticides used by farmers inevitably wind up in the river. The list goes on....




Along the course of documenting this devastation, I was struck by the different ways in which we gathered information. The three primary methods were via water sampling, our own observations and the observations of the people we interviewed. Each had its own strengths and weaknesses.
I had a box of expensive meters which measured Dissolved Oxygen, Temperature, Conductivity, pH, Nitrate, Phosphate, and Turbidity. But oftentimes these readings failed to support what I was obviously seeing. For example, we sampled just downstream of the sewage outlet of Azangaro, a large city on the river, expecting to find extremely elevated nutrient levels (Nitrate and Phosphate). Yet the results were unexceptional. It turned out that the late afternoon wind was actually creating a reverse current in the shallow river, causing the sewage to temporarily flow upstream. The point here is that water sampling with high tech equipment really only gives a temporary snapshot of a very small pocket of water in a large dynamic system. Still, numbers make powerful arguments and using expensive equipment gives an air of legitimacy to scientists.
The physical appearance of the river and its surroundings gave very strong clues to what was going on. The milky turquiose appearance and the lamas easily pinpointed mining contamination. These observations were consistent along the length of the river and reflected the sum of the season´s contamination. In contrast, Turbidity and Conductivity (which essentially measure how much stuff is floating in the water) gave irregular and minimal indications of sediment contamination.
The testimony of the people was surprisingly consistent. Every person we interviewed told a similar story of how the river used to a thriving biotic system, full of fish and healthy water. Then the mining contamination began, and now the fish have died, the water is murky and dirty, animals get diarrhea and die from drinking it and crops wither when irrigated with it. The utility of this form of documentation is its long term view. The people we interviewed have been intimately living with the river for generations. These are not city folk getting their water from a tap. These were the farmers and fishermen who subsist on what the river can provide.
Still, there are weaknesses to relying on human observation. The very consistency of the testimony was suspicious. I firmly believe that human nature tends to take a rosy view of the past. Everything was always better back then, as any old timer will say. This extends to college seniors talking about how much cooler and more fun their school was when they were freshman. One forty-five year old farmer told me how tall the crops grew when he was five, and how much shorter they are now. I have similar memories of how deep the snow was when I was tiny and how shallow it is now. Human testimony is important, but it needs to be backed up by scientific measurements to guard against the imperfections of memory and the desire to push a certain agenda.


We came, we saw and measured and interviewed, so what happens now? Well, this was officially a preliminary survey designed to set the stage for a more serious one (that can measure heavy metals) in the future, so not too much. This is the frustrating part of many documentation projects. We know there are problems, but the people affected by the contamination already knew that, so what have we really accomplished?

The actual political situation in Peru regarding pollution mitigation is complicated and depressingly corrupt. Suffice to say the government appears incapable of resolving the problems, even though it is quite aware. This turned my thinking towards the personal responsability of the people of the Rio Ramis to protect their own water. The standard response of the people I interviewed was that all the blame lies on the mines upstream and they should be shut down. This is not true and not feasible. Agriculture, urban populations and fisherman deserve a share of the blame as well. Furthermore, the mines are the backbone of the economy. Shutting them down would be a disaster for thousands of people in an already impoverished region. What really struck me was that the same people complaining about the contamination would toss their trash into the river a few minutes later. I now believe that the only way to deal with this issue is to convince every interested actor along the rivershed that it is in his or her own personal interest to do what they can to prevent their own detrimental contamination of the river.

Agricultural activities along the river increase erosion, which in turn carries wastes, insecticides and of course sediment from the land into the river. Associated livestock also pollute waterways with their abundant wastes. Urban populations release vast quantities of untreated human wastes along with industrial chemicals and daily trash. Fishermen don`t contaminate the water, but they are disturbingly prone to removing every tiny fish in the river well before it has a chance to become fullgrown and start repopulating the river. And of course the mines (and the miners who work them, these are NOT faceless corporate entities!) release sediments and heavy metals into the river.

Every person living along the Rio Ramis falls into one of these categories. Many people work in the fields during the harvest season and in the mines at other times. Interests overlap everywhere, but everyone has an interest in a healthy river. I believe that this argument can be justly made to everyone along the river. You do your part to protect the river; reduce erosion, support the development of a sewage treatment plant, only take adult fish, pressure the mine to build a containment pond, and STOP TOSSING TRASH IN THE RIVER!

If the population of the rivershed can be convinced of their personal responsability, and educated about what they can easily do to protect the river, then the corrupt and ineffectual government response will become irrelevant. To this end, I will be developing a pamphlet of our conclusions and reccomendations to distribute to the people of the Rio Ramis watershed, with the help of Hector Flores and Professor Heather Williams of Pomona College (the driving force behind this project).



Coming soon...Azungate, 5400m, lazy gringoes, devasted intestines and the Ex-Roomates Extraordinaire!!