By Oh to be a pundit. If there were a school or even a home-study course, I would enroll. The reason I would like to be a pundit is that pundits can pontificate about things of which they have no knowledge or understanding and if time and events prove them wrong no one ever remembers. Except for their wives, of course, but wives never remember anything until it suits them.
Over the past few years there have been a number of pundits pontificating about the lack of water in the lake. There was any number of flavors of lake pundit, to be sure. There were those who held the Mexican government to be at fault for the lack of water. There were those who believed that Guadalajara held the blame. There were those who felt that hugging the lake would restore hydraulic equality. There were those who felt that lakebed aridity was a religious issue. On one extreme of this group were those who felt allowing a religious icon to view the arid conditions would prompt immediate divine intervention. On the other extreme were those who felt an imbalance existed between the human element and the natural element. It should be noted that soon after this group attended said imbalance the lake waters did begin to rise. Fair is fair, after all.
After all is said and done it is still Mother Nature, or in this case, maybe mean old Tlaloc who has the final word. It certainly isn't a bunch of old farts from somewhere else sitting around a coffee shop complaining about a natural cyclical phenomenon, that's for sure. About the only thing that bunch of pundits accomplished was to drive down real estate prices for their own homes. But then, come to think of it, Tlaloc always has required a blood sacrifice and the dry lake was certainly bleeding that bunch.
Something to consider is that the lake has only come up a little less than two meters so far this year. In the early or mid 1990's it came up a little more than five meters in one year. There's still time and space this year for a little more liquid refreshment for the lake.
I am certainly happy that Lake Chapala has been accepted by the Living Lakes group. Perhaps through the offices of this organization the lake can be balanced somewhere between the feast and famine of recent years. It will certainly help if the farmers up the Rio Lerma can get the funding to change their irrigation practices and if Guadalajara gets an alternative water supply. It would also help if the various communities around the lake and in the Lerma valley had adequate waste water treatment plants. I suspect that this will take time because the funds for such projects are slow in coming. The limited resources available in Mexico must be stretched as far as they can.
I might suggest to anyone who is really concerned about the lake that human resources are required to research the crops and markets for alternative plantings in the Rio Lerma basin. It would seem likely that the brain trust represented by the retired community in and around Ajijic would have time and knowledge available to help those poor souls trying to eke a living out of the land. It isn't any wonder that they are so militant about having enough water to plant that third crop on their land. They still have kids to feed and clothe.
Maybe Tlaloc and company will see fit to send more water our way the rest of this year and even more next year if we can find a way to attend to the human imbalance between those who need the water for crops and livelihood and those who need the water for its sheer beauty. It takes no talent or energy to complain. Anyone can do it. The same cannot be said for accomplishment.
