NewsWhore
05-24-2011, 02:40 PM
Environmental specialists are calling for the evacuation of areas around Lake Enriquillo and the need for a plan for the use of lands in Bahoruco and Independencia provinces. A plan of this kind would determine that the area around the lake that cannot be used for farming or for human settlement. Eminent ecologist and Deputy Minister of the Environment, Eleuterio Martinez, together with geologist Osiris de Leon, are calling for the urgent resettlement of residents living around the Enriquillo Depression where the lake is located. According to the experts, the Neiba Valley was once an ocean channel that went from the Bay of Neiba to the current site of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
Several theories have been put forward to explain the ever-increasing expansion of the lake, according to the two experts, including the deforestation in the area of the watershed, the sedimentation brought by the South Yaque River or as a result of a sea level rise.
De Leon, who has been studying the area for three years, nevertheless, rejects all these possible causes. His thesis is based on the fact that for five days the tropical storms Noel and Olga dumped an enormous amount of water on the surrounding mountains in 2007. In fact, he said, these two storms produced more water than all the normal rainfall over a year and a half. As reported in El Caribe, De Leon pointed out that the lake is fed by a series of springs and several surface streams. Because the Neiba mountains are, as he calls them "sponges", all the water absorbed during the two tropical storms is being slowly released by the springs and streams of the area. The result: while the lake has the ability to evaporate some 750 million cubic meters of water a year, 1,250 million cubic meters of water are entering the basin resulting in its increasing size.
Martinez says that the cloud forests of Neiba and Baoruco are contributing more than the normal amount of water to the sub-soils, and pointed out that a similar process is affecting Lake Azuei, just five kilometers from Enriquillo on the Haitian side of the border.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
Several theories have been put forward to explain the ever-increasing expansion of the lake, according to the two experts, including the deforestation in the area of the watershed, the sedimentation brought by the South Yaque River or as a result of a sea level rise.
De Leon, who has been studying the area for three years, nevertheless, rejects all these possible causes. His thesis is based on the fact that for five days the tropical storms Noel and Olga dumped an enormous amount of water on the surrounding mountains in 2007. In fact, he said, these two storms produced more water than all the normal rainfall over a year and a half. As reported in El Caribe, De Leon pointed out that the lake is fed by a series of springs and several surface streams. Because the Neiba mountains are, as he calls them "sponges", all the water absorbed during the two tropical storms is being slowly released by the springs and streams of the area. The result: while the lake has the ability to evaporate some 750 million cubic meters of water a year, 1,250 million cubic meters of water are entering the basin resulting in its increasing size.
Martinez says that the cloud forests of Neiba and Baoruco are contributing more than the normal amount of water to the sub-soils, and pointed out that a similar process is affecting Lake Azuei, just five kilometers from Enriquillo on the Haitian side of the border.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)