Dead Zone Bay of Ferrol - The worst environmental sin of the Peruvian fish meal industry.

The Bay of Ferrol is situated about 400 kms north of Lima at the town of Chimbote, famous as the fish meal capital of Peru. At the same time, it has an important iron and steel industry. The bay does have a diameter of around five nautical miles. Relieves fresh water from the river Lacramarca and is on its oceanside protected by a series of islands and rocky outcrops. The bay is the center of the Peruvian fish meal industry, with 24 production plants being situated along its shores. Due to this industrial development, the local population had increased from 30,000 residents in 1952 to 300,000 by 2005.

The industrial development does affect the bay in three ways:

The siderurgia industry contaminates the bay with cadmium, copper, iron, lead and hydrocarbons. The fish meal plants are discharging protein, fat and oil into the bays water, as well as the contaminated marine water used during the process of pumping the fish from the ships hull to the processing plant. The air, heavily contaminated by the fish meal production plants, deposits additional contaminants on the surrounding landscape, urban areas and to the sea. Additionally, urban sewage is discharged into the bay without any treatment.

Together this contamination is the the worst local contamination found on a national level. It obviously exceeds natural capacities of recuperation by far. Only the fish meal plants discharge millions of tons of organic sewage into the bay every year. This has lead to the accumulation of a toxic layer of undecomposed, organic material on the floor of the entire bay. This layer, creating a huge dead zone in the ocean, may reach a thickness of more than one meter of depth.

In the last year there have been some minor advances in order to reduce the amount of sewage discharged by the iron and steel industry and some of the fish meal plants. Nevertheless, the contamination continues at a great scale.

In the last years, several studies have analysed the situation and proposed solutions to the problem. In 2002, a special commission was formed under the leadership of CONAM. The purpose of this technical and multisectoral commission of the highest-level, was to prepare an emergency plan for the recuperation of the bay, due for the beginning of the year 2003. The President of Peru, Mr. Alejandro Toledo, declared publicly that the recuperation of the Bay of Ferrol was a national priority. The terms for the commission however, only included the analysis of the problem. The action plan should be created as an additional step.

Two different kinds of solutions have been suggested so far. The first level is the prevention of further damage and the second level includes the recuperation of the bay. There are technical suggestions in order to minimize contamination. The costs of the measures to be taken, according to the level of recuperation aimed for, vary between US$ 39 and 90 million. Nevertheless, the detailed identification of the sources of contamination, the determiantion of costs for the technical measures and the financial impact of the clean-up activities on the local economy are still not known exactly.

Some of the so called "solutions" are simply no real solutions of the problem. For example, the construction of a large sewage pipe, discharging the contaminated water of the fish meal plants and the urban sewage system 4 kms offshore instead of within the bay. This will only lead to the contamination of other parts of the coast within a few years of time.

Other proposals of unknown viability and questionable value are the rehabilitation of the bay and the extraction of the contaminated slug on the bottom of the bay, as well as the construction of a marine barrier in order to divert marine currents, causing beach erosion.

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