THE “REAL” TRUTH OF SISTEMA CHAC MOOL On Thursday, November 13 I made a post on a few Facebook pages after completing a cave dive with Ned Andrews, PH.D in Hydrology of Boulder, Colorado at Cenote Chac Mool that morning. Our dive was downstream to the “Monster Room” to view a 40 foot drip stone that was discovered by Gary and Kay Walten of Akumal. The cave was explored by them with additional explorers Dan Lins, Mike Madden, Andres Matthes, and Andrew Pitkin. In addition, Matt drew a beautiful cartography map that is distributed by the Quintana Roo Speleological Survey. With my dive with Ned we immediately discovered a dramatic change in the cave once you reached the saltwater zone. There was a tremendous amount of unusual organic material with the visibility being 30 - 40 feet compared to the 150 feet+ in the past. I was PISSED! The entire 1600 feet downstream was like this. When we reached the room (that drops to 95 feet in depth) the visibility improved dramatically at 50 feet and deeper. After the dive I showed Ned the bathrooms located above the downstream Cavern area along with a huge pen of geese, turkeys and chicken. I asked him could this be a reason for the change. Though not scientifically proven he said it was a possibility. I took photos of the bathroom and the birds and posted them on Facebook suggesting this could be the reason. In response, I got the typical comments by people who were saddened, disgusted or dismayed and several cave divers made comments that Sistema Chac Mool would be “off their dive list”. I even made a statement saying I would not dive it again. I got a comment from cave diver Dirk Penzel stating the problem was not the few birds. The contaminated water comes from the totally congested water cleaning plant in the Puerto Aveturas Pueblo made for 5000 people used by 20,000 people. That made even better sense! Saturday morning I am driving out to Cenote Dos Palmas to start a DPV Training course with two students. While driving the Ejido road I get a phone call from Cave Diving Instructor Daniel Gonzalez of Cancun who is a good friend and who helped me team teach a few cave diving courses last year. Daniel explained that it was NOT pollution causing the dramatic change in the cave system. He along with several other people took samples of the water and had it tested in Laboratories in Playa Del Carmen and Cancun. All tests proved NEGATIVE with animal and waste pollution. The problem was a direct result of the expansion of the Puerto Aventuras South marina. Last winter the construction of three new canals began with the final expansion of Puerto Aventuras. This expansion was directly over the exit point of the Chucalal Caleta. This is a MAJOR spring vent into the Caribbean Sea. The source for this huge spring is Sistema Chac Mool. This expansion of three new canals actually cuts into the cave system. By exposing the underwater cave with these three new canals it allow more saltwater intrusion to flow upstream dramatically. Daniel says the saltwater layer is more pronounced and there is a brackish water beneath it. This change is noticeable all the way upstream to Cenote Pakal located 3600 feet further into the jungle from Cenote Chac Mool. Daniel is writing a paper this week to correctly address this problem. All of this NOW makes more sense to me. Again, as typical Riviera Maya and Mexico, no studies, no analysis, no nothing before altering the environment. In a way, I wish it was human and animal waste causing the problem. That can be FIXED! This change is permanent and NO fixing it! I offer my sincerest apologies to the Maria Rosa Kamul and her family for making the wrong assumption. SISTEMA CHAC MOOL (Mol) “The Jaguar Cenote” 16Q 0474234 UTM 2268241 N°20 30.435” W°87 14.491” The land owner is Maria Rosa Kumul. The linear distance explored and surveyed is 30,160 feet, 9,193 meters. The maximum depth is 93 feet/28.3 meters. There are nine cenotes located within this cave system. They are Cenote Chac Mool, Cenote Chicitito, Cenote Emergency Air, Cenote Kukulkan, Cenote Little Brother, Cenote Miracle, Cenote Mojarra, Cenote Pakal and one other. This is one of the most popular cavern dive tour sites of the Riviera Maya. It offers three cavern areas and is the closest cenote to the City of Playa Del Carmen for cenote tour dives. You can easily do a “double underground” dive tour at this site. Photos by Steve Gerrard. Monday, November 17, 2014
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 19:44:26 +0000
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