| Ducks, Paddle Boats, Floating Tractors and Pollution on Italy's Lake Como |
| Thursday, 02 February 2012 | Dawn Marshallsay | Blog Entry |
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I’m not saying Italy’s third-largest lake isn’t beautiful—George Clooney owns villas there for a reason—but there’s something wrong with the water: it’s green. The phosphates and nitrates from pollutants have caused an excessive growth of algae, a process called eutrophication. Ducks might enjoy the extra food, but decomposing algae remove oxygen from the water, which is detrimental to fish. It’s not just the wildlife that suffers. The annual Lake Ecosystem survey carried out by the Italian environmental organization Legambiente has labeled Lake Como’s waters as too polluted for swimming since 2007. Such pollution puts bathers at risk of skin infections, dermatitis and salmonella, but we still saw plenty of bikini babes braving the lake’s sludge. My boyfriend and I decided to investigate the pollution problem in the safest and most eco-friendly method we could think of, using one of myriad inventions by the Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci: a paddle boat. It was time to put my knowledge of pedal-powered eco devices into action. So what were we looking for? When the water’s bacteria level was reported to be 68 times over the safe limit for bathing, em>The Independent suggested many culprits, such as toxic run-off from agriculture, and discharges from housing and industrial developments. But we didn’t catch anyone in the act; in fact, we saw the opposite—some kind of floating tractor. A ramp at the front of the boat appeared to be collecting floating debris, while wheels at the back churned out water. Googling and zooming in on my photo when we got home revealed that we had spotted Spazzello, the second-largest of three skimmer boats that filter the waters of Lake Como. The boats were named Spazzello, Baz Spaz and Alghè by school children in the Como area through competitions run by the Reference Center for Education and Environment of the Province of Como (CREA), and would probably make ideal characters in an environmental cartoon series. Whether these boats alone can meet the EU’s Water Framework Directive, which requires all European lakes to achieve “good ecological status” by 2015, is doubtful, but it’s a start. It’s a shame when tourism that thrives on natural beauty can’t enjoy it without damaging it. Additional resources: Help the Earth, Spread the Word: Share this article with family and friends by clicking on the "Email This" or "Share This" links below right. Then see TODAY'S TOP STORIES.
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When a gang of ducks congregated in front of me at the edge of Lake Como in Lombardy, Italy, they must have been praying I’d throw them some pizza and not another plastic bottle to add to the collection bobbing between the lumps of natural and man-made waste.
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