By Jose Cabezas
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador (Reuters) -In July, Alberto Castillo abandoned his boat on the shores of Lake Suchitlan. He could no longer fish or take tourists around the lake – El Salvador’s largest – because it was overrun with water lettuce. He is among thousands of families that live around the lake who have lost their livelihoods because of the invasive species’s spread.
Satellite images from early October show that nearly the entire 52-square-mile (135-square-km) lake is covered by the plant. The El Salvador-based nonprofit Fundesyram, which is helping to clean the reservoir, estimates that 80% of the lake is impacted. The reservoir was constructed in the 1970s to serve the country’s major hydroelectric power plant.
The plant’s spread has been fueled by extreme pollution, rainfall, and nutrient flows from various tributaries. As the lettuce has proliferated, the wavy leaves form a dense mat that blocks oxygen from entering the water, killing fish and submerged plants, and hindering boats from navigating the water.
The species’s spread has forced some 3,000 fishermen off the lake and cost the local economy at least $1.3 million, according to data from the confederation of artisanal fishing cooperatives. Restaurants close to the lake have cut staff due to declining tourism. Locals refer to the water lettuce as “the plague.”
Hundreds of soldiers, government employees and residents are working to clean the lake and remove the lettuce, which is inedible for human consumption. They have cleared some sections and cordoned them off with steel cables to prevent the lettuce from returning, but the invasion persists.
“We don’t have the tools to stop a plague as big as this plant,” Castillo said. “We can’t fight the force of nature.”
(Report by José Cabezas and Wilfredo Pineda in Suchitoto; Written by Diego Oré; Edited by Emily Green and Christian Schmollinger)
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