Tag Archive for: San Roque Lake

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Every drop counts: from a historic failure to the cleanup of the San Roque.

We got the courts to demand that the State clean up the lake. Now we need your support to make it happen. Your contribution is the drop that changes the lake.

Lake San Roque is more than just a landscape: it’s a source of water, life, and work for millions of people in Córdoba. Today, it needs us. For decades, it has been polluted to the point where its water is no longer safe. But in April 2025, the courts acknowledged the environmental damage and ordered the State to carry out a comprehensive cleanup plan. This was the result of years of technical and legal work by Fundeps, together with the support of neighbors, communities, and organizations who live by and defend the lake.

It’s a historic achievement. What once seemed impossible begins with a single drop. And what comes next depends on you.

A ruling that changed everything

The court ruling for the comprehensive cleanup of Lake San Roque recognizes the right to a healthy environment and demands that provincial and municipal authorities implement concrete measures to restore the basin. It was the result of years of joint effort: collecting scientific evidence and historical documentation, preparing technical reports, attending hearings, conducting expert evaluations, and continuous monitoring.

But rulings don’t enforce themselves. They require oversight, citizen participation, and constant presence to turn words on paper into real action.

What is Fundeps doing now?

Our legal and technical team continues to follow every step of the process closely:

  • We request regular reports and submit observations.

  • We monitor compliance with the ruling and the cleanup plan.

  • We demand transparency and citizen participation.

  • We support the communities around the basin.

  • We work to empower communities so they can demand the ruling’s enforcement.

Your contribution is the drop that changes the lake

The Drop That Changes the Lake is a campaign of individual donors that helps sustain this work, ensure that the ruling is enforced, and make the cleanup of San Roque a reality. Every contribution —big or small— helps fund legal and technical monitoring and strengthens citizen oversight to protect Córdoba’s water and environment.

Without follow-up, the ruling could remain just words on paper. Your donation helps turn this historic decision into safe water. Today, you can be the drop that changes the future of the lake.

Drop by drop, change grows. When drops come together, they form a current strong enough to achieve the impossible: bringing life back to Lake San Roque. When a community unites, even the smallest action becomes powerful.

Your contribution is the drop that changes the lake. And every drop counts.

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We want San Roque Lake clean now!

At Fundeps we have been working since 2009 for the right to a healthy environment. We understand the environment from a comprehensive and broad perspective that includes the interaction between natural common goods and society. From this perspective, we are concerned about the province’s water, so in this note we will tell you chronologically about the actions we are carrying out in the search for solutions for a healthy San Roque lake.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

In 2020, we carried out a Situational Diagnosis of Córdoba’s Water Resources: Lago Los Molinos and Lago San Roque, with the aim of analyzing the state of the main basins in the province, fully understanding the problem and analyzing possible courses of action.

The San Roque Lake Basin is in an extremely serious situation due to its advanced state of eutrophication. This means: the proliferation of algae in fresh water as a result of an excess of nutrients, particularly phosphorus; this natural process is exacerbated during hot weather. The situation is mainly due to the lack of sanitation in the Punilla area, a deficient sewage system, lack of control over discharge authorization, degradation of the lake, fires, deforestation, among others. With this basis, we carry out negotiations with decision-makers with the aim of undertaking actions for its remediation.

The pollution of the San Roque Basin not only puts at risk the health of people who are directly or indirectly in contact with the basin, but also affects the quality of life, the landscape, regional economies and the biological diversity of the province.

As we did not receive any positive responses from the provincial administration and as a last resort, in November 2022 we filed a Collective Environmental Protection action suing the Province, the communes and municipalities that make up the San Roque Lake Basin, the Provincial Administration of Water Resources of the Province of Córdoba (APRHI), the Ministry of Public Services of the Province of Córdoba, and the Secretariat of the Environment of the Province of Córdoba (now Ministry). Check out the timeline of the case here.

In the writ of amparo we ask the courts, among other measures, to gradually cease polluting activities such as dumping hazardous waste, sewage, and industrial waste; to order the defendants to build, complete, or expand the necessary sewage works, and to create an autonomous and self-sufficient River Basin Committee, made up of the various stakeholders in the river basin. We also request various precautionary measures such as the suspension of any authorization to carry out untreated dumping, the creation of a temporary management plan, and the design of a risk communication plan, among others.

In March 2023, the Third-Party Administrative Litigation Chamber partially admitted the requested precautionary measure and ordered the Government of Córdoba to prepare and present a provisional Sanitation and Sustainable Development Plan within 60 days.

The province appealed this resolution and simultaneously presented a plan that does not comply with the resolution. The plan presented has serious deficiencies: it does not stipulate deadlines, budget, or agencies in charge of execution. In addition, it is a plan that greatly exceeds the limits of the precautionary measure since it was designed to be executed within a period of 15 years. We at Fundeps made various observations. To date, the intervening Chamber has not yet issued a ruling. We consider that the design of an environmental management program of such impact and temporal extension, which involves present and future generations linked to the San Roque Basin, must necessarily be designed in dialogue with the population and that the future of the basin cannot be decided in the limited period of 60 days.

Currently, the judicial process is still ongoing and in the meantime the province, the Ministry of Environment and the Basin Authority (created in November 2023 by law 10,941) are carrying out insufficient cleanup actions: they are the same ones that have been carried out for years and that have not prevented the current contamination situation.

In the face of the summer season, with very high temperatures, thousands of hectares recently burned and a deep drought, we believe that it is time to demand actions that lead to different results that transform the management of the basin and promote real change. It is a key moment to request citizen participation in the design, execution and implementation of public policies aimed at the sanitation of the basin.

 

Your participation is key to achieving the cleanup of the basin. SIGN HERE!

 

Contact

María Laura Carrizo, lauracarrizo@fundeps.org

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Justice resolves a preventive measure for Lake San Roque

Yesterday, March 30, 2023, the Court admitted the precautionary measure requested within the framework of the environmental protection presented last November. The Chamber resolves to partially grant the measure and orders the province of Córdoba to “Plan for Sanitation of Lake San Roque and Sustainable Development” within a period of 60 business days.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

Background of the case:

In the month of November, Fundeps presented a collective environmental protection action before the Córdoba justice system requesting urgent and definitive measures to be taken regarding the serious situation that the Lake San Roque basin is going through.

The Administrative Litigation Chamber 3A Nomination, on 12/12/2022, summoned all the defendants (the municipalities and communes that make up the basin and the Province of Córdoba), and stated:

“That it is public knowledge of the delicate situation in which the San Roque Lake basin finds itself, whose degradation has been going on for a long time; worsening year after year, with pollution peaks in the summer periods (effect of high temperatures and lack of precipitation, among other causes); all of which is periodically made visible by the different provincial or local journalistic media that graphically portray the state of the water mirror that supplies a large part of the provincial population.

Given this, it summoned the province of Córdoba – through the competent areas or agencies – so that within a period of 15 judicial business days they report, among other issues, whether the Sustainable Development Committee of the Basin is current and operational. of Lake San Roque, if there is a sanitation plan, a Strategic Plan for Sewage Sanitation Works in the area and also requested the Legislative Branch of the Province to inform if there are bills related to the sanitation of the Lake San Roque Basin .

Among the responses provided by the Province, the Chamber highlights that the “Sustainable Development Committee of the San Roque Lake Basin” is not in operation, created by Law 7773, and that there is effectively no Sanitation Plan, but rather isolated measures are adopted from the different departments.

Resolution of the Chamber on the requested precautionary measure:

In this context, the Court, through Order Number 33, in its resolution yesterday considers that, as we had stated in the lawsuit, the remediation of the basin is not possible without a plan that, based on the diagnosis of the current situation, define means and mechanisms to achieve sanitation and sustainable management.

Thus the Chamber resolves, making use of the broad faculties and powers it has in this type of process where collective interests are at stake, to partially grant the requested precautionary measure and order within a period of sixty (60) business days. to the Province of Córdoba the preparation of the project of a “Sanitation Plan for Lake San Roque and Sustainable Development”.

Its main objective will be the sanitation of Lake San Roque associated with the sustainable development of its basin, and must contain, among various requirements:

A. Actions aimed at achieving the objective, with express mention of fire prevention, and the impact of anthropogenic activities in the basin, the territorial planning of the Basin as appropriate to each municipality or commune;

B. goals;

C. methodology;

D. deadlines with milestones with partial stages with times and measures;

E. proposal of different alternatives for the solution of the identified problems and their possible causes, in addition the Chamber requires that these alternatives must be considered in terms of their acceptability, effectiveness, efficiency and quality; The selection of the alternatives taken to solve the different aspects of the problem must be adequately justified;

F. definition of mitigation and remediation measures;

G. Audit systems;

H. among others.

The Plan must be prepared jointly by the Secretariat of Water Resources, the Secretariat of Public Services, the Secretariat of the Environment, the Provincial Administration of Water Resources, with the special participation in said task of the INA-CIRSA.

At Fundeps, we feel very optimistic about this resolution, appropriate and timely regarding the serious water crisis that we are experiencing and particularly the critical situation of the San Roque Lake basin. We consider that this is also an important precedent in environmental judicial matters, and a hopeful resolution for the group of people who defend the environment in the province of Córdoba.

More information

Presentamos un amparo ambiental por la contaminación del lago San Roque

Diagnóstico Situacional de los Recursos Hídricos de Córdoba: Río Suquía 

Diagnóstico Situacional de los Recursos Hídricos de Córdoba: Lago Los Molinos y Dique San Roque 

 

Autors

María Laura Carrizo Morales

Ananda Lavayen

Contacto

lauracarrizo@fundeps.org

 

*Photo taken from the digital newspaper El Independiente

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We present an environmental injunction for the contamination of Lake San Roque

We presented an environmental protection before the Justice of Córdoba for the serious situation of contamination and degradation that Lake San Roque presents, one of the main reservoirs of Córdoba.

“Below, we offer a google translate version of the original article in Spanish. This translation may not be accurate but serves as a general presentation of the article. For more accurate information, please switch to the Spanish version of the website. In addition, feel free to directly contact in English the person mentioned at the bottom of this article with regards to this topic”.

After an in-depth study of the critical situation of environmental contamination suffered by the main water basins of the province, including Lake San Roque, Los Molinos Dam and Suquía River, we made a diagnosis where we capture its current state and the causes pollution, the consequences that this generates in the environment, in the community and in biodiversity, and we make a series of recommendations to the authorities.

As we were able to determine, the main cause of contamination is the lack or deficiency of appropriate public policies. Which translates into poor management of sewage effluents and urban solid waste, deforestation, contamination with agrochemicals, fires, lack of environmental impact studies in public and private works, among others, all of which ends up seriously affecting the water courses.

We particularly focus on Lake San Roque due to the great importance that this lake has for the entire province, since there are various cultural, economic and developmental life webs in and around it, in addition to supplying water to a large part of the people who live in Córdoba. It is estimated that the water that more than a million and a half people drink comes from the lake, and it is the economic engine of the entire Punilla region.

Given the alarming situation of the lake, and given the lack of initiatives by the authorities to stop the contamination immediately and clean up the basin, despite the constant demands of the community, we decided to go to court through an injunction environmental.

What does the protection consist of?

The purpose of this legal action is to request the Courts to intervene proactively in the protection of the right to health, quality of life and preservation of a healthy environment. Through the amparo presented, we sue the authorities responsible for the situation of Lake San Roque, that is: the Government of the Province of Córdoba, the Ministry of Public Services of the Province of Córdoba, the Provincial Administration of Water Resources of Córdoba ( APRHI), the Secretary of the Environment of the Province of Córdoba, and the municipalities and communes that the basin crosses.

The objective of this action is to ask the Cordovan justice to:

  • condemn the defendant authorities to carry out actions aimed at preventing polluting behavior in the San Roque Lake basin and its tributary rivers;
  • order to cease the dumping of substances that pollute the lake;
  • Demand to stop public and private works that could deepen the critical situation of the basin;
  • order the urgent restoration and remediation of the lake;
  • At the same time, we ask for the creation of an interdisciplinary and interjurisdictional River Basin Committee, which has powers of inspection, control, authorization of polluting activities and/or undertakings, among other powers. The formation and proper functioning of said Committee is fundamental in order to consolidate efficient and appropriate solutions to the needs of the entire community. In this sense, we request that citizen participation be guaranteed in advance in its formation and in its subsequent operation, and that its opinion be mandatory for the authorities.

The reality shows the serious and critical situation that all the water courses in the province are going through, something as basic as the water we drink cannot admit more inaction and delays on the part of the authorities. For this reason, we hope that the Justice of Córdoba responds quickly and responsibly to this cause, given the importance it has for those of us who inhabit the province, for future generations, for the environment and for the community of Punilla.

 

More Information

Situational Diagnosis of the Water Resources of Córdoba: Los Molinos Lake and San Roque Lake

Situational Diagnosis of the Water Resources of Córdoba: Suquía River

 

Author

Ananda Lavayén

Contacto

Laura Carrizo, lauracarrizo@fundeps.org

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Situational Diagnosis of the Water Resources of Córdoba: Los Molinos Lake and San Roque Lake

This document seeks to analyze the current status of Lake San Roque and Lake Los Molinos from a comprehensive approach, from various sources of information. The objective is to achieve a complete understanding of the dimension of the problem and, based on this, weigh the measures and actions of prevention, mitigation and recomposition that it demands.

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