Fifty years: the dead and the sick left by industrial pollution in the Santiago River

The first signs of the contamination of the Santiago River in Jalisco are 50 years old without regression. Every day, 32,250 cubic meters (m3) of wastewater are irrigated by industrial activity. The Water Quality Index (ICA) has remained “bad” for 11 years, according to official data from the Government of Jalisco.

Foam in the water, the stinky smell, invasive mosquitoes, dead animals, headaches and diseases are the daily lives of residents of El Salto and Juanacatlán. Two municipalities in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area that, historically, have been documented as the most affected.

For example, Graciela González has a chronic cough that interrupts her conversations every couple of minutes. He coughs, pauses and says, between joke and fact, that in El Salto everyone has a cough.

Graciela is a member of the collective Un Salto de Vida A.C., and has been fighting for the defense of the Santiago River for more than 10 years. Although he was born in Guadalajara, he spent his childhood weekends in El Salto, where his paternal grandparents worked in the textile industry and his maternal grandparents were farmers. 40 years ago he officially moved to the municipality.

“The situation has been particularly difficult in El Salto and Juanacatlán. Nothing has improved, the only thing that has changed I think is the community's awareness [...] A lot of people have recurrent infections that get a little relief and the next day they are sick again,” said Graciela González.