“We are in danger”: clouds of toxic foam generate alarm near Bogotá | PHOTOS

From a distance it looks like a harmless white foam, but in reality it is a massive accumulation of contaminants in the form of cotton that overflowed a river and entered the neighborhood in a town near Bogota. A stench betrays pollution.

For several years now, the residents of the Los Puentes sector in the municipality of Mosquera have become accustomed to the appearance of a foam smelly in the Balsillas River, where wastewater from the Colombian capital arrives, located about seven kilometers away.

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But this time an unusually heavy rainy season collapsed the river and the waste-laden waters of the capital of eight million people were dammed up at this point. The white pestilence grew until it invaded a score of houses.

“This is a product of contaminationfrom the poor disposal of waste, materials, dead animals, garbage, grease and detergents”Sergio Valero, director of risk management for Mosquera, a municipality in the lower basin of the river, explains to AFP. Bogotawhich collects waste on its way along the western edge of the capital.

“The smell is terrible, we have had to put up with this for a long time. foam”, complains Luz Mariela Gómez, social leader of Los Puentes.

The authorities claim that “Currently there are no cases of health effects” of the neighbors. But Óscar Arandía, one of them, assures that it is difficult for him to breathe.

Valero assures that the foam is formed because the Balsillas, a tributary of the river Bogotadrag “high loads of organic matter and surfactants”, What Detergents, dishwashers, shampoos and other household cleaning products are known to end up in the sewers.

Prolonged exposure to these chemicals can cause damage to aquatic fauna and irritation to human skin, according to scientific studies.

Various quarries, flower farms and residential areas of the outskirts from Bogota They dump their untreated waste into the Balsillas, warns the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Cundinamarca (CAR), the area’s environmental authority, in several documents.

Meanwhile, the fetid foam It continues to grow and has already obstructed the road that leads to the local school.

“We are in danger. Someone falls there and we can’t find it”, warns Luz Mariela Gómez moments before slipping on the white mass and getting up in disgust.

Source: Elcomercio

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