4 ~ Viednesday, Nov. 25. 1992 - North Shore News From ‘Toxcoco to toxic ponds MEXICO C77 Y'S air doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as it really is. STRICTLY PERSONAL That's because the city is located some 7,000 feet above sea level. Yeah — almost as high as Mount Baker. The air is parched and thin. Moisture evaporates quickly. The city was built ina valley between mountain ranges, No winds blow freely through it from or toa any- where, W's a perfcet catch basin for air pollution. The altitude has forced Pemex, the Mexican government-owned oil monopoly, to put additives in- to the gasoline to ntake it work better, a practice that has cnor- mously increased the amount of ground-level ozone trapped in the valley basin. Ground-level ozone is what we commonly call sinog, as Pm sure you're all too aware, But in Mexico City, it's a dif- ferent kind of smog. Because of the dry mountain air, there's very little vapor. Without the vapor, the ozone simply doesn’t show, it's not completely invisible bul very close. A sepia-colored, Saintly shimmering cowl. A change of filter over the sun. Places with plenty of foggy weather condifions create the im- pression of a different kind of smog entirely. The ironic thing about Mesico City’s invisible smog, if (may call it that, is chat it Gils up a valley where the natives were ance called Children of the Sun, When the Spaniards arrived, they found a well-organized city of some 500,000 souls, ruled, un- fortunately, by a really sadistic gang of retigious serial killers. At the street fevel back then, Pm told, the Aztecs themselves were already complaining about overcrowding and contamination of the water, although no com- plaints were made about the tir and the exquisite light it let through from space. The air remained sparkling clear in the Valley of Mexico, we may guess, until the Industrial Revolu- tion, Since then, it has thickened, coagulated, congealed and been laced with so many chemicals it has become deadly to breathe. Today this lung-searing soup of fead, carbon dioxide, nitrogen ox- ide and every hind of heavs metal you can imagine ts gencrally ac: knowledged as having turned Mexico City into the mou polluted city on Earth, The contamination is so bad that pregnant women are sent out into the country by families who can afford it, and even those who can’t, so that the child will have a chance of being born without suf- fering brain damage duc to lead poisoning. Yet one of the more desperate aspects of the mighty conurba- tion's plight is something that has nothing in particular to do with air contamination or even the health problems associated with it. Rather, it is the fact that the ci- ty is built over a lake. It’s a landfill site, really. The ultimate case of paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. The opposite of Holand. Here, they surrounded and filled in the sea. Al that remains of the original Lake Toxcoco are a few scattered bodies of water, barely more than extended ponds. Between them lie thousands of acres of buildings, homes, streets, factories, industrial wastelands, freeways, railway lines, tarmacs, plazas, aquaducts, storage tanks, holding ponds and more freeways: a giant man-made crust, with same tree million cars and trucks rumbling along its surface every, day, so that the ground routinely shudders. The urban “crust”? tn tuen sits upon the roof of a mighty under- ground aquifier, the buried rem- nant of the original hike. It has been turned into an un- seen water table. Until last year, more water was being sucked out of the aquifier than was getting back in, so it had begun (to dry out. Shoutd it dry out too much, the cathedrals and hotels and gov- ernment buildings and the read- ways themselves will begin to sink. The prediction from engineers — acknowledged without the bat- ting of an eyelash by top city managers J talked to — is that, within 50 years, an cnormous slab of the dawntown core of Mexico City will have setdled by as much as t2 metres, Bisarre, sf? Scary, toa, what with the popu- lation of Greater Mexico City be- ing a demographer's shame. That is, nobody apparently knows for sure. Environmentatists — yes, by God, there are some! — say there could be as many as 25 million people living in the basin, while government officials prefer figures like 17 or 18 million. Homero Aridjis, one of the country’s leading authors, and president of the Group of 100, the most influential eco-group, told me he expects to sce 30 million human beings in the valley of Mexico by the year 2000. He has written a totally depress- ing play about what it will be like to live there then. Fo create this picture, all he had to do was make the invisible death-cloud that already envelops Mexico City visible in the imagi- nation of his audience. Your Professional, Committed, OFFICE 984-9711 PAGER: 645-9651 FAX: 984-3350 Real Estate Expert Realty 2996 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver A satellite broadcast live from: New York City links you to aw ovathering of 30,000 people from 170 countries. VISION TV CHANNEL 30 Thursday Friday November 26 November 27 4tpm-8pm Zam-l tam Repeats: Thurs. Friday November 26 November 27 9pm-lam noon-tpm ry TO OUR VALUED “60 PLUS” CUSTOMERS: We've got a golden savings opportunity for you! Come in and take advantage of a 15% savings on almost everything in the store! Just show us that Govern- ment of Canada Blue Card, Senior Citizen Transportation Card, Provincial Senior Citizen Card, Driver’s Licence or Birth Certificate. 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