Ecobreves – GUATEMALA: An Eye on Nuclear Waste in the Pacific

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

GUATEMALA CITY, Sep 2 2006 (IPS) - The Guatemalan government and private entities have opened a laboratory for detecting contamination from toxic and nuclear substances in industry and ship traffic in a portion of the Pacific Ocean. Located in Puerto Quetzal, 120 km south of the capital, the lab was inaugurated on Aug. 25 and cost about 200,000 dollars, most of which was donated by the International Atoic Energy Agency.

The program includes “a scientific buoy, three miles at sea, which sends data about wave action, temperature and atmospheric conditions to the lab's computer network,” Nicolás Solares, chief oceanographer for the Quetzal Port Enterprise, told Tierramérica.

Monitoring of the maritime waters will be along a 14-km band between Puerto San José and the town of Iztapa, and extending three miles out from the coast.