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Ajijic Lirio


HarryB

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Gracias to the many lirio harvesters along the Ajijic malacon this morning. A large number of them were teenagers. The lake looks great. If more lirio appears before the season ends, at least you know you did a great job getting rid of a huge amount and your work is appreciated.

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I was amazed this morning at the Chapala malecon...Thurs. AM it was still solid like the picture, today it was almost all gone. One lone guy was down there still working at it. Some huge piles were still on the shore waiting to be carted away. I thought it must have blown out into the middle of the lake but regulars there said they did it all with "person power."

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Unfortunately, it was the wind that blew it out into the lake, not the hardworking folks who tried to clean it up. It will return same as before, probably more, when wind blows it back. The final cleaning with Round Up is probably at least a year or two away as it is not nearly as bad now as it was the last time.

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Well, I don't know anything about anything. But I saw an ARMY of people down at the lake this morning getting the lirio out. I saw a backhoe in the water shoveling stuff to shore, and dump trucks carting it away.

It wasn't just "kids" playing in the mud.

There are still piles of it on the shore….but here's the great news: None of the stuff that got removed today is going to multiply in the water, which it surely would have otherwise. Is it over? Certainly not. Still, it's great to see people coming together and reducing the problem.

CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU to everyone who actually did the work and made it happen! Well done! Thanks!

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Well, I don't know anything about anything. But I saw an ARMY of people down at the lake this morning getting the lirio out. I saw a backhoe in the water shoveling stuff to shore, and dump trucks carting it away.

It wasn't just "kids" playing in the mud.

There are still piles of it on the shore….but here's the great news: None of the stuff that got removed today is going to multiply in the water, which it surely would have otherwise. Is it over? Certainly not. Still, it's great to see people coming together and reducing the problem.

CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU to everyone who actually did the work and made it happen! Well done! Thanks!

Couldn't have said it better. I agree wholeheartedly. Gracias to all those volunteers

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This is exactly what they did the last time. Didn't work then, either. Failure should be something we learn from as human beings, not keep repeating. Repeating failure is demoralizing to the human spirit and just a little bit dumb.

Not sure exactly how applauding and congratulating efforts known to fail fits in. Interesting concept, though. Encouraging failure.

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This is exactly what they did the last time. Didn't work then, either. Failure should be something we learn from as human beings, not keep repeating. Repeating failure is demoralizing to the human spirit and just a little bit dumb.

Not sure exactly how applauding and congratulating efforts known to fail fits in. Interesting concept, though. Encouraging failure.

The planet has been seeking peace in the world, all the way back to the League of Nations. We have obviously failed, in large part. Does that mean the world should keep trying, or just give up?

Right now the choice regarding lirio seems to be between using a poisonous substance to kill the lirio or continuing the seemingly futile effort to rid the lake of it by hand. Perhaps some bright person will come up with a better solution. I say......we keep on trying, on both matters. YMMV, as always.

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I agree that getting together to clean up the lake are important not that it will make a whole lot of difference in the spread of the lirio, the last one I participated in did not, but it gets the community working together for a common cause and raises the awareness of the problem so nothing bad can come out of that.

We do a lot of things in life that is doom to failure..just like living : we all are going to die so why not commit suicide and be done with the absurdity of life...I rather fight it even if it seems absurd to some.

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Bizco wrote the answer earlier this month. Peons. This is what the Mayor/Presidente is also advocating, at least according to the Guadalajara Reporter - someone has to pay for some truckloads of workers. He also says that they are telling him that tourism is down because of the weeds.

An account by Carson circa 1908. He refers to "yellow water lily," not purple, but in 1909 Terry refers correctly to the same problem as lirio aquatico:

"All along the shores of the lake, and in the Lerma River which runs into it, hundreds of peons are employed in gathering and burning yellow water-lily which has invaded the waters. A few years ago, some imbecile planted a quantity of the lily in the river, thinking it would look pretty. In an incredibly short time it spread like wildfire; some of the streams were completely choked with it, and when I visited Chapala the river was covered in places with green masses of the plant. It had spread all along the lake when the Mexican government took the matter in hand and appropriated a large sum of money for its destruction. At night, fires can be seen blazing along the shores of the lake where the peons have collected and are burning large piles of the noxious weed."

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The planet has been seeking peace in the world, all the way back to the League of Nations. We have obviously failed, in large part. Does that mean the world should keep trying, or just give up?

Right now the choice regarding lirio seems to be between using a poisonous substance to kill the lirio or continuing the seemingly futile effort to rid the lake of it by hand. Perhaps some bright person will come up with a better solution. I say......we keep on trying, on both matters. YMMV, as always.

The "poisonous substance" has already been used and proven safe and effective.

Removal by hand has also been tried and proven to be futile.

Simple choice: Keep trying that which has failed and keep the Lirio or do that which worked with no apparent or detected ill effects and get rid of it.

Now if they want to use the manual labor method on a much larger scale as a means of providing employment, that idea may have merit as far as providing employment goes. I'll assume someone other than the local municipio will pay for it since they are quite in debt up to our collective ears now.

As an alternative, I suggest that they spray the darned stuff and be rid of it and put the people to work providing the cleaning and other municipal services which seem to have largely disappeared in recent years.

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So far Roundup (glifosato) is the only serious solution. I used it for many years on my cranberry farm as did most other Ocean Spray growers and I still use it here in Mexico to control weeds. I don't know of any proven problems with Roundup.

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The lady that cleans my house said on Friday that her kids and their friends were all pretty excited about getting together to help pitch in, as are their parents. While I think the work is not going to succeed, this enthusiasm shows that it is--and will--on at least one very meaningful level.

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I entirely agree with all that has been said about getting together, community spirit etc etc..however "we" all need to work smarter not harder...the use of glifosato has proven to be a winner..."They" need to fix the problem at the source.....

Then these community groups can work on the more mundane stuff like looking after their own barrio, trash and tagging etc,....

Seriously, spending monies , which we do not have, on Tractors and Hauler Truck's is not the answer

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Glyphosate may not be as harmless as Monsanto would have us all believe. Pregnant women and young children are advised to avoid contact with it. It does not completely dissolve into a harmless acid which is absorbed by the soil...it has been detected in groundwater. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently reevaluating its regulations for allowable limits in drinking water. The largest source of glyphosate in drinking water is from agricultural runoff. Considering how much of the water in the lake is from agricultural runoff, the lake may already exceed allowable limits of glyphosate.

Let's not forget that the city of Guadalajara draws something between 10-20 percent of its tap water from the lake. If we had a similar problem with water hyacinth in the U.S. or Canada, would it be acceptable to spray glyphosate on tap water reservoirs?

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Nobody in Guadalajara drinks tap water,not even poor people.

When I moved here I asked about it and was told that if I didn't want "tripas torcidas" I should avoid it..

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