Cleaning up Lake Managua

Project goal: prevent further pollution of the lake
Measures: Building water treatment plants, using dried sewage sludge as fertilizer
Investment: 25 million Euros

For decades, household sewage and industrial effluents generated by residents and farmers in northern Nicaragua ended up unfiltered in Lake Managua, one of Central America’s largest fresh water reservoirs. The result was an epidemic of water-transmitted infections and toxins in the lake’s fish. The contaminated lake posed a health hazard to people living along its shores, who depend on its water to cook, drink and wash. Now, a water treatment plant installed on the shores of the lake has begun cleaning up the waste water and supplying fresh, drinking water. Experts are also working on using the abundant dried sewage sludge as an alternative to synthetic fertilizers. The aim is to save money, slash carbon emissions and help restore the lake’s strained ecosystem.