18 cenotes have been cleaned up in Yucatan this year

Mérida, Yucatán.- The cleaning and sanitation of cenotes in several municipalities of Yucatán is progressing through a strategy of comprehensive attention to these bodies of water.

The head of the Secretariat of Sustainable Development (SDS), Sayda Rodríguez Gómez, informed that this strategy seeks to free the bodies of water from solid waste that ended up dumped inside them and that represent an important source of contamination for them and the communities in which they are located.

“To date, we have 56 cenotes in the administration. The goal for each year is 24 cenotes, we are in cenote 18 and we hope to finish the year with all 24. In addition, we have to follow up, the cleanup of a cenote is not simple,” he said.

The state official informed that these cenotes are located in 17 municipalities, in which close to 15 thousand tons of waste have been removed, which reach the bodies of water through human action.

Because the amount of waste is significant, more than one sanitation action is carried out in the cenotes served, so that as much garbage as possible can be removed from the site.

“Sanitation continues to be carried out in the same cenotes, two or three times and we continue to remove waste, not new, which is also good, but old waste that is still sedimented is appearing. So, if more than one intervention is needed, that is what we have done, that is why we have only intervened in 17 municipalities”, he pointed out.

Along with the cleaning of the bodies of water, an awareness-raising strategy is carried out with the inhabitants of each municipality in which sanitation actions have been carried out, in order for them to help prevent the garbage from being dumped in the cenotes.