In Argentina’s southern Patagonia region, a lagoon has turned into bright pink colour, which the experts and activists say is a scary event and blamed pollution by a chemical that is used to store prawns for export. The colour is a result of using sodium sulfite, an antibacterial product that is used in fish factories. The waste from the factories has contaminated the Chubut river, the activists said.
The Chubut river is the only river that provides for the Corfo lagoon and other water sources in the region.
Residents for a long time have complained about foul smells and other environmental issues circulating the river and lagoon.
Environmental activist Pablo Lada speaking to AFP has accused the government of the disorder. "Those who should be in control are the ones who authorize the poisoning of people," he said.
The lagoon turned pink last week and on Sunday has remained an abnormal colour, Lada said, who lives in the city of Trelew which is about 1,400 kilometres south of Buenos Aires.
The change in colour of the water body is due to sodium sulfate found in fish waste and as per law sodium sulfite in fish waste, informed environmental engineer and virologist Federico Restrepo.
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The lagoon is not utilised for recreation and gets drainage from the Trelew industrial park. This inflow of waste products had earlier turned the colour of the lagoon into fuchsia.
Residents of the area are annoyed now. Recently, a resident of Rawson, neighbouring Trelew, had blocked roads from where trucks carry processed fish waste through their streets to treatment plants on the city's outskirts.
"We get dozens of trucks daily, the residents are getting tired of it," said Lada.
Because Rawson’s protest was illegal, the provincial administration permitted the factories to dump their waste instead in the Corfo lagoon.
"The reddish colour does not cause damage and will disappear in a few days," environmental control chief for Chubut province, Juan Micheloud stated last week.
Sebastian de la Vallina, planning secretary for the city of Trelew opposing this said it’s not possible to minimize something so serious.
Plants that treat fish for export, especially prawns and hake, create thousands of jobs in the Chubut region which is home to about 600,000 people. There some dozens of foreign fishing organisations operate in the area in waters under Argentina's Atlantic jurisdiction.
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Lada stated, "Fish processing generates work... It's true. But these are multi-million-dollar profit companies that don't want to pay freight to take the waste to a treatment plant that already exists in Puerto Madryn, 35 miles away, or build a plant closer.”