State of the Lake/Mexico 2018 Quick Facts

Dr. Todd Stong is a licensed professional civil engineer who has served for the past 14 years in Jalisco state as a volunteer engineer adviser to local area governments.  Dr. Stong focuses on water quality and management and job creation in the 42 villages around Lake Chapala.  The following is a brief summary of his annual update to an overflow audience in Ajijic on March 4, 2018:

Three “good” things to report about the state of the Lake:

• Lake volume and quality is very good despite the fact that the lake will never be full in our lifetimes due to Guadalajara water usage
• High dissolved oxygen (wave actions) eats organics
• High pH (8.7) 50X more alkaline than the ocean stops chemical action and migration of solids to liquid form
• Murky – stops algae growth

Four “best” things to report about Mexico in general:

• 90% of the causes of childhood kidney disease in some of the small towns on the south side of the lake are now identified
• The GDP of Mexico, presently right below that of France will pass that of the U.K. in 10 years and Germany in 20 years
• Mexico has free trade agreements with 44 nations, thus 60% of the world market is tax free
• The sound of needed changes is coming over the horizon via informed young adults who will lead the way in unshackling Mexico from the cost of its twin cancers of corruption and violence

Five “not so good” things to report about Mexico in 2018:

• Expect no major public works projects before June 2019 as governments change, public funds vanish and too many inept family and campaign staff fill the new offices in January 2019
• Corruption has increased to the point where Mexico is ranked 135 out of 180 nations in the world for transparency
• The bottom 10% of the population has 1.3% of the nation’s wealth while the top 10% has 36% of the nation’s wealth
• Diabetes, soda consumption and kidney disease in Mexico are among the worst in the world
• Chapala continues to be the worst performing county around the lake in terms of politics and corruption

Miscellaneous Facts

• 38 million Mexicans or their descendants make up 12% of the U.S. population
• Nearly 80% of the water in Mexico is contained in the southern states
• The USA border with Mexico is 1952 miles long.  Approximately 1/3 has fences/walls and 1/3 is naturally near impassable
• Cultural divisions in Mexico:  60% mestizo, 15% indigenous; 10-40% claim European ancestors
• By 1600 (80 years after the arrival of the Spanish) 80-90% of the native population disappeared
• Mexico is the #1 Spanish speaking nation in the world and the #2 Catholic nation in the world
• For each Mexican living in Canada, there are over 400 in the USA
• The current population of Mexico (124 million) is 39% of that of the USA (327 million) and 3.3 times larger than Canada (38 million).
• Over the course of centuries the lake will become a savannah and then a meadow given that 2mm of sediment per year for 2300 years will fill the lake

Read more from Dr. Stong here and stay tuned for the full update on the The State of Lake 2018 coming soon.  Come to a Focus on Mexico seminar and explore whether Lakeside is the right choice for the next stage of your life.

 

2019 UPDATE: the Latest 2019 Version can be downloaded here;

State of Lake Chapala 2019