Polluted Tap Water in Jalisco Towns Spike Deaths from Kidney Failure Latin American Herald Tribune
go to original June 3, 2016

23-year-old Graciela González Jacob lives on dialysis due to contaminated water in the communities of San Pedro Itzicán and Agua Caliente in Jalisco. (EFE)

About 100 residents of the towns of San Pedro Itzican and Agua Caliente, in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, have died over the past decade as a result of kidney failure, and dozens of others have gotten sick from drinking polluted tap water.

The residents of these communities on the shores of Lake Chapala are trying to survive amid poverty, malnutrition and threats to their health from drinking water that contains toxic substances.

People in the Indian communities on the lake have used water from a thermal well and springs for decades, but the water is not treated for human consumption, Guadalajara Socio-Environmental Forum representative Enrique Lira told EFE.

The group is a faith-based organization monitoring the problem.

Tests conducted by a number of public agencies show that the water has contained levels of sulfide, manganese, fluoride and fecal matter exceeding the official standards for at least the past five years, Lira said.

“The highest (level) is of sulfides,” Lira said, adding that these substances were behind the increase in kidney failure cases and birth defects.

Read the rest at Latin American Herald Tribune

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