A cinderella called Sullana

The contamination tarnishes the Pearl of Chira.

 

By Mako Fernández Guerrero, Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo, & Ronald Zevallos Muro. Photographs by Franco Alburqueque.

 

SULLANA, Peru – The rumor –because no one confirmed the source—ran like spread powder: the second most dangerous city of Peru after Callao. The inexistent tourism vanished, the Sullana-natives  abroad were seen bad, coming to this city from other places equaled to enter a war zone.

 

Until 2013, the second most important city of Piura, one of the 20 most important ones in Peru (after the 15^th place), concentrated about 150,000 people of 1.7 million who lived across Piura Department, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (2007). It’s the capital city of Sullana Province and it hosted the half of its population, according to the same source.

 

Where have the ddiscouraging merit come out from? It was repeated, it was repeated, and even it provocated an emergency state claim but nobody attributed a source. In January 2013, Ideele e-magazine undisclosed the ranking of the 5 most dangerous cities in peru, that was according to the classification of the cities with most economic growth done by Perú Económico. Sullana, as well as any city in Piura, did not featured among the 5 first ones neither as a mistake.

 

Although the citizen unsafety don’t leave to be a matter of care, what seems to rush in a town that is opening to new commercial horizons is the contamination.

 

Water of s**t

Every Sullana-Bellavista wreckage leads into Chira River. The main source is located just in the border of both districts beside Loma de Mambré (Mambré Hill), one of the three ones over the 37-square-mile city settles down.

 

About 3 miles down the river is Sullana Diverting Dam that contains the water of river to supply the agricultural area of Lower Chira Valley. When it was finished in 1996, it created an artificial  lagoon that was taken advantage to do water sports.

 

What was not previewed was actually creating a huge waste water pond that permitted the water lily to gather. In theory, this plant absorves the saprophite bacteria and transform in oxygen by photosynthesis.

 

Until 35 years ago, it used to sail forming weak floating islands that flowed down the river. Because the dam doesn’t release water continously, the lily covered up the the Chira’s surface in front of Sullana not permitting to oxygenate its depth and to grow water fauna.

 

In 1996, a study released by the former Councellor César Leigh Arias revealed the river in front of the city registered 20,000 parts per million (PPM) othermoresistant fecal coliforms (TFC). World health Organization, according to that report, says the maximum to tolerate is 1000 PPM. Mr Leigh said the Chira continued to be one of his main concerns once he was a councellor again.

 

In December 2011, when the river was declared under sanitarian emergency by the Regional Government of Piura (RGoP), the TFC toll was the same. Studies made by the National Authority of Water during 2012 in front of the metro area revealed the new toll was over than 24,000 PPM of TFC. In simple terms, the water was useless even for re-processing, according to Peru’s environment Ministry guidelines.

 

On February 15th, 2013, that office announced in Bellavista that was necessary to declare the environmental emergency in the zone but it had no budget to fund… not then, at least.

 

A savior plant?

On January 13th, 2013, former Congressman Juan José Díaz came to Sullana and found an unexpected news: a manager of the running water company, EPS Grau, told that Maple Ethanol (ME) had an apparent solution to waste water.

 

It only required to build a treatment plant for it. The resultant liquidwould be bought by the company to irrigate its sugarcane fields that used to obtain ethanol. The water, not suitable for human consumption, would be enriched with nitrates that would represent a substantial save in fertilization. The project, in principle, would cost about US$ 30 million.

 

Congressman Díaz said to support the proposal. Former Sullana Province Municipality’s environmental Administration manager Fernando Brossard del Rosario said to FACTORTIERRA that, in fact, there was the project but the brief was still making. The cost was a little bigger – about US$ 36 million.

 

A municipal source confirmed to FACTORTIERRA that the most effective solution was to build a 3-phase treatment plant, if not it will be useless. Independent specialists we consulted with coincided in the same idea.

 

In his side, Mr Brossard warned another way-out would be to lie the public. It already wwas the experience of a 2-phase oxydation pond in El Cucho, near Bellavista City, but it frustrated because the stench disappointed the surrounding people that invaded it and today they use as a settlement.

 

Biologist Suriel López resisted to consider the Chira like a dead river and proposed to create artificial wetlands to mitigate the pollution in little scale. The plants would feed from the dirt and purify water, air, and soil. Another short-term solution was implanting effective microorganisms (EM) in the Chira those would permit to control biologically the polluting agents, but temporarily.

 

Said simple, the EM are good microorganisms that eat the bad microorganisms. Result – zero pollution… or its reduction in a big portion. If other polluted water wave would be, this solution in particular wouldn’t be sustainable but like a fast and relatively cheap outcome, it could work.

 

Flagrant fragance

When Sullana was arrived from Piura, the first aroma the voyager received was the decomposition of big squid processing plants’ organic matter. In October 2012, FACTORTIERRA learned that a Sullana Province Municipality’s employee revealed on his Facebook private account that that during an inspection to one of the plants, an ammonia (NH₃) spread  happened.

 

The NH₃ origins naturally by the decomposition of organic matter or waste, and it is generally found like a gas. It’s a substance that is highly volatile, corrosive, and irritant in contact to human skin or mucus. However, we produce it during the digestión. It’s lethal in excess.

 

A plausible theory for the Sullana case was the NH₃ uncontrolled emissions from those plants. It’s necessary to point out that the marine mollusks, in the open, decomposes quite fast. Sullana Province Municipality said it have intervened and closed the squid processing plants and the stench waves still persisted so.

 

Was the squid ddecomposition capable to produce a similar smell to pig excrement’s? Since February 17^th, 2013, this has stressed especially around 13:00 and 19:00 (from 6:30 on March 13^th). Mr Brossard was about the nervous collapse in inspection after inspection –even a judge in Sullana assured there is no bad consequences in mental health—until a monitoring report of one of the ethanol plants leaked on February 27^th, 2013,

 

According to the extraoficial excerpt, the stench agent could be the vinasse, the residue after obtaining alcohol or ethanol. The stage was similar to the generated in Tucumán, Argentina, in 2009, according to the information shared by Simón Garragate on our Facebook account. The local authorities forced the processors to sit down for take the vinasse out, affecting the environment the less as possible for what the Argentinian federal government was summoned as a back-up.

 

At Chira Valley, the two companies processing ethanol were ME –the same one that wanted to intervene in the waste water processing plant of Sullana—and Empresa Agrícola del Chira (Caña Brava) that was accused of the death of people on October 18^th, 2012, near the town of La Huaca, Paita Province, because of the smoke by the burning of sugarcane brushwood.

 

Everyone traveled on a car to Sullana which driver crashed to another he didn’t see because of the dense smoke. The case followed under investigation at this story’s deadline, so the responsibility of the company has not proven although one of its officials denied it. RGoP’s Natural Resources Management demanded Caña Brava to stop the burning that also has ignited a conflict with La Huaca’s people.

 

Despite of the allegations on the social media, Caña Brava and ME did not demarcated if they cause the stench in Sullana but who accused them have no conclusive proof neither to incriminate them straight. What was actually verifiable was the pollution in the city provocated diverse reactions although the indignation seemed to be general. Some collectives said on Facebook that they had integral proposals to solve the problem.

 

The issue already escaped the pure government competence and demanded a creative and technical response supported by the citizenship, that should be part of that solution.

 

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