Thursday, July 17, 2025

Thousands of dead fish turn up in México state reservoir

Teams of workers from the National Water Commission (Conagua) are working to remove thousands of dead fish from the Madín dam reservoir in Atizapán de Zaragoza, México state. With kayaks and wheelbarrows, the workers spent Friday collecting the stinking carcasses and taking them to be buried away from the water.

As early as August 15, social media users began reporting the massive die-off, sharing videos of densely packed fish writhing in the water and images of their bodies washed up on the shore.

“This is happening at the Madín dam. Two months of bad management of the dam, thousands of fish appear dead! And now the water is gray!” one Twitter user wrote, as she shared photos from the reservoir.

Conagua said that personnel visited the dam on August 20 and 24 to review the damage and take water samples from various areas of the reservoir, including the effluent of a local water treatment plant, in an effort to identify the cause of the deaths. The results of their analyses are expected this week.

Activists and local residents attributed the fish deaths to the low levels of water in the dam.

“Now there are thousands of fish, not hundreds but thousands of fish asphyxiating because the bottom of the dam is filled with organic material and they can’t breathe,” said Miguel Miramontes Lira, the coordinator of the organization Preserva Madín.

Conagua acknowledged that water had recently been released from the dam, contributing to the low water levels. They said the release was standard procedure for the rainy season, and was meant to protect downstream communities from possible high water levels.

Meanwhile, others blamed nearby developers for not complying with environmental standards. The environmental organization Tribuna Urbana said in a Facebook statement that they had reported various polluters for discharging untreated wastewater into the reservoir, but authorities did not take action.

With reports from Milenio and UnoTV

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
The achoque is a critically endangered salamander that’s the cousin of the famous axolotl.

Lake Pátzcuaro’s fishermen answer call to rescue the achoque, the axolotl’s endangered cousin

1
Fishermen in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, have teamed up with local scientists to raise achoque hatchlings and re-release them into the lake in an effort to stabilize their declining population.
men working in seaweed off the coast

Despite heroic clean-up efforts, sargassum keeps accumulating on Quintana Roo’s coast

2
A stunning indication of the current crisis — as well as of the locals' heroism — took place in Isla Mujeres, where between Sunday night and Monday morning, 140 tonnes of the algae came ashore.
water in the Cutzamala System

Cutzamala System recovers to 56% capacity after historic rainfall in central Mexico

0
The Cutzamala System, which supplies water to the greater Mexico City area, currently has 27.6% more water than it did at this point in 2024.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity