Juanacatlán Falls

About

Juanacatlán Falls (El Salto de Juanacatlán) is a waterfall on the Santiago River in the Mexican state of Jalisco, once known as the Niagara of Mexico. Decreased flow in the Santiago River has left the falls now virtually extinct. About thirty years ago, the falls were cleaner than ever and plenty of tourists visited it. But, now the falls have been polluted by toxic wastes, chemicals, and garbage from the factories and the nearby city of Guadalajara. These once-majestic falls, the first Mexican landscape on a postage stamp back in 1899, have been reduced to a trickle of foul-smelling effluent. At the start of the twentieth century, the falls provided hydro-electric power for Guadalajara and turned the wheels of a cotton and woolen mill, the ruins of which now stand to one side. The region where the Santiago lies is a heavily industrious area. Since the implements of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA in 1994, the region has been transformed into one of Mexico's largest industrial zones with factories dumping their wastes into the river. There have been any people who with diseases caused by the river, and many of them have died because of the toxins that spread to the air, but the most famous incident is the boy named Miguel Angel Lopez Rocha, who was playing with his friends and accidentally slipped and fell into the river. He got out of the river and

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.