Rare geological event drains Five Blues Lake

It may not be one of Belize’s best known protected areas but for conservationists in the know, Five Blues Lake National Park has always been considered a rare gem. Unfortunately, over the last week Five Blues has achieved a different kind of notoriety. News Five’s Janelle Chanona reports.

Wilber Sabido, Chief Forest Officer
?It is what I term phenomena. What was once clear blue waters is now no longer there. What you see is one big puddle and two smaller pools. So it?s really incredible that this is going on right now.?

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
The transformation at the Five Blues Lake National Park has been surreal. A dramatic drop in the water level has turned the once pristine ecosystem into little more than a muddy hole. Scientists estimate that the lake has lost as much as eighty percent of its volume.

There was no hint of any problem until mid mid-July when park ranger Mario Perez knew something was very wrong as he watched the water disappear before his very eyes like a bathtub from which the plug had suddenly been pulled.

Mario Perez, Ranger, Five Blues Lake Nat?l Park
?I have no answers for it. And I have a feeling like this is for me, like I lost some of my family, because I love nature and this will make a negative impact to nature.?

Perez called in Professor of Natural Resource Management at the University of Belize, Dr. Ed Boles. Earlier this year, Boles and his students conducted several scientific studies in and around the lake. Boles? assessment–not too different from the bathtub analogy–is convincing.

Dr. Ed Boles, Natural Resource Management, U.B.
?It?s probably a pretty routine event. Whenever there is a depression that becomes clogged with debris and it accumulates clay and other deposits. A lake would then to form. But again, that debris plug may be very temporary in the term of thousands of years, but ultimately it will collapse. But in a human lifetime, again, it?s a very rare event. So it represents an opportunity for us. Because it is a rather interesting geological event, it might also attract foreign researchers that can also add more information. At this point we are speculating, our best guess scenario but we don?t really have definite evidence as to what actually happened.?

Janelle Chanona
?Experts estimate that for the past week, every day the lake has lost as much as a foot and a half of water. Grim projections are that by the end of the month, there will no longer be a lake in the Five Blues Lake National Park.?

Five Blues is co-managed by residents of St. Margaret?s Village and the Forest Department. Chief Forest Officer Wilber Sabido believes the natural landscape of the area has played a role in this bizarre event.

Wilber Sabido
?We know as a matter of fact that this entire area has extensive cave systems and you can see it evident above the level of the water, and it is probable that the lake itself was probably part of a larger system. And it could be that the floor of the lagoon for various reasons, it could be carbonification maybe the weight of the water probably with recent rains which added to the acidity of the water might have caused the flow of the lake to basically collapse.?

Dr. Ed Boles
?You saw the grass flattened around the area. Probably that occurred when the plug first dropped away. It?s much like removing water from a water cooler and a big bubble of air comes up and causes a ripple in the surface. Then probably as the water receded more debris was washed into the hole and slowed the lowering of the water level. It?s still falling. It?s certainly an environmental phenomenon in that this represents a sudden change in the whole habitat structure of the area.?

The scientists are also hoping that their research will show how the aquatic life in the lake has handled their new reality.

Dr. Ed Boles
?We found about twenty different species of fish including schools of fresh water snappers that we were interested in going back and looking at this semester. We also did some plankton work and found some very interesting organisms there.?

Wilber Sabido
?They?re basically putting a team together for them to come out and see exactly what?s the fauna like right now. Based on their results we are going to see what happened or what is happening to the fish. Is it going along with the river, with the water? We don?t know, we just don?t know.?

Agriculture is the traditional mainstay of St. Margaret?s Village but of late, residents were also trying their hand at tourism, setting up a bed and breakfast system in ten homes. The Fernandez family was one of those investors and tonight they?re worried about the future.

Sonia Fernandez, Women?s Bed and Breakfast Group
?I don?t think the tourists will come a lot. Maybe they will come just to explore what is happening in the Five Blues right now. But I don?t think they will come much again.?

Janelle Chanona
?So where does that leave your business??

Sonia Fernandez
?Well it will leave it down because they won?t come. Sometime if they come they stay, but if they don?t come so we won?t have business.?

When we visited the area, local children were trying to soak up the last of the lake.

Luis Garcia, Villager
?I?m feeling bad because this was a nice area to come bathe. And now we can?t bathe again.?

Tonight friends of Five Blues are asking for help from local and international experts.

Mario Perez
?They might give us advice and what to do. And maybe, what I heard from some of the villagers is that the water is going to return some day. If that happen, so who knows??

Janelle Chanona
?You are keeping your fingers crossed??

Mario Perez
?I?m keeping my fingers crossed.?

The silver lining in this desperate scene is that some villagers believe that water from the Five Blues has travelled to a smaller lagoon located less than a mile away.

Wilber Sabido
?We need to look at that area very carefully given the fact that there is vegetation in that area that is being occupied now by water, making sure that if that is where the water is going, we need to clear vegetation. We need to ensure that by doing that, because of the different chemicals that may be released, it won?t affect the overall vegetation of the area and possibly even the visitors that visit it.?

This week, park rangers and concerned villagers will start cutting a trail to the area so that officials can determine if the lagoon can be used by visitors to what for now at least will still be known as Five Blues Lake National Park.

Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.

Officials are planning to visit the area by helicopter to take detailed aerial photographs of the site.