• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Mexico City's Sewage System a Dirty Job

Posted on: Tuesday, 24 January 2006, 18:00 CST

By Dane Schiller, San Antonio Express-News

Jan. 24--MEXICO CITY -- Even on the best of days, these guys are in deep doo-doo.

So it goes for divers probing the mucky, pitch-black bowels of this capital's sewage system.

Their mission: dislodge everything from car doors to animal carcasses, and even the occasional murder victim, clogging underground waterways and pipelines.

"It is the nastiest job there is," said Carlos Salgado, a city water department engineer.

"It is like at home, what is the worst job, the one nobody wants to do? Clean the bathroom," he continued. "Somebody has to do it."

And so, at least once a week, the city's four-member dive team takes on some portion of a 102-mile system that serves one of the world's largest metropolises, with 9 million people inside the city's limits and at least that many more in surrounding barrios and suburbs.

As Mexico City is far less environmentally conscious than the United States, problems churn up as the system is fed by countless miles of open sewage canals that residents also use for trash disposal, including refrigerators, food and clothing. Birds and rats can be seen along the festering waters, hunting for food.

"Just as it leaves your house, that is how it arrives here and we find everything you can imagine," chief diver Julio Cu Camara said. "It is totally dark, so you go by feel, pure feel."

At one of the system's choke points, an open-air treatment facility known as the Big Canal, about three tons of garbage a day are pulled from the water through a system of strainers including metal grates, workers with a boat and pitch forks, and divers.

Among the treasures from this day was a rubber Chucky mask, which may have been used for Halloween.

It still looked plenty scary with its piercing blue eyes.

The challenge is that the aguas negras, literally black water or sewage water, roils through a series of pipes connected to canals that residents use as trash heaps.

In a huge collection pool at the Big Canal, the toxic water can be 25 or more feet deep. The top layer is a crust of floating garbage and the bottom is two or three feet of muck and feces, the divers said.

On a recent afternoon, as diver Luis Covarrubias Boca Negra prepared to be lowered into the Big Canal, he took nothing for granted.

He examined his rubber gloves by clutching them in a fist and blowing air into them as if they were balloons.

He and the other divers, who each make about $600 a month, had a macho look about them, but conceded the job was humbling.

"Almost every time you go down, you get scared," Covarrubias said. "Equipment can fail. You can be sucked into a pump. A nail or metal rod can cut your suit."

Ten years ago, diver Luis Silva was killed as he removed a tire stuck under a waterway door that worked like a dam gate.

When he dislodged the tire, he was crushed under the door.

To ensure safety and so that they will be able to submerge rather than float on top of the water, divers wear heavy equipment, including big, round helmets that weigh about 22 pounds, and weighted belts are about 40 pounds.

An oxygen tube is connected to helmets, as is a voice-communication system.

On this afternoon, Covarrubias stood on a platform that was hoisted by a crane, pushed toward the center of the Big Canal and slowly eased into the water.

It took about 10 seconds from the time Covarrubias's encased feet touched the first layer of garbage until he was totally submerged, oxygen bubbles eerily gurgling up from the toxic soup.

Divers can spend just a few minutes or as many as five hours under water as they comb for problems. Although it is nearly impossible to see below the surface, divers sometimes know there is a problem in a certain area if the water flow slows or depth increases.

Mexico City also has experimented with submersible cameras and lights to explore the muck.

Covarrubias later said even though he rarely gets wet under his suit and bathes with special chemicals after each shift, his wife hates his job. And he knows he can't dive in sewage forever.

He is taking college courses at night, studying for a career some might say he already is well-prepared for: political science.

-----

To see more of the San Antonio Express-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mysanantonio.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, San Antonio Express-News

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: San Antonio Express-News

More News in this Category