Chihuahua City Research Articles

Lifetime Effective Dose Assessment Based on Background Outdoor Gamma Exposure in Chihuahua City, Mexico.

Determining ionizing radiation in a geographic area serves to assess its effects on a population’s health. The aim of this study was to evaluate the spatial distribution of the background environmental outdoor gamma dose rates in Chihuahua City. This study also estimated the annual effective dose and the lifetime cancer risks of the population of this city. To determine the outdoor gamma dose rate in air, the annual effective dose and the lifetime cancer risk, 48 sampling points were randomly selected in Chihuahua City. Outdoor gamma dose rate measurements were carried out by using a Geiger-Müller counter. Outdoor gamma dose rates ranged from 113 to 310 nGy·h−1. At the same sites, 48 soil samples were taken to obtain the activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K and to calculate their terrestrial gamma dose rates. Radioisotope activity concentrations were determined by gamma spectrometry. Calculated gamma dose rates ranged from 56 to 193 nGy·h−1. Results indicated that the lifetime effective dose of the inhabitants of Chihuahua City is on average 19.8 mSv, resulting in a lifetime cancer risk of 0.001. In addition, the mean of the activity concentrations in soil were 52, 73 and 1097 Bq·kg−1, for 226Ra, 232Th and 40K, respectively. From the analysis, the spatial distribution of 232Th, 226Ra and 40K is to the north, to the north-center and to the south of city, respectively. In conclusion, the natural background gamma dose received by the inhabitants of Chihuahua City is high and mainly due to the geological characteristics of the zone. From the radiological point of view, this kind of study allows us to identify the importance of manmade environments, which are often highly variable and difficult to characterize.

Functional ecohydrological differences among native and exotic grassland covers in sub-urban landscapes of Chihuahua city, Mexico

Vegetation characteristics of sub-urban areas might play underestimated regional roles in the provision of ecohydrological services such as the recharge of wells and superficial water reservoirs (dams), dust control and climate buffering. We hypothesized that potential hydrological processes at the soil–grass interface in a sub-urban area in Chihuahua are affected differently by native and exotic plant species, in that vegetation patches of native grasses favor infiltration and percolation over bare soil (interspaces) and over vegetation patches of exotic species. We examined these hypotheses by monitoring infiltration and permeability of adjacent soils in sub-urbanized semiarid grasslands dominated by native or exotic grass species. Our study revealed that both, soil textural characteristics and plant species composition are important controls of percolation and infiltration in semiarid grassland ecosystems. The test of homogeneity of slopes showed significantly higher infiltration rates in patches compared to vegetation-free interspaces in sites with Eragrostis superba (F>199, P<0.001), Digitaria californica (F>632, P<0.001), Eragrostis lehmanniana (F>533, P<0.001) and Bouteloua gracilis (F>102, P<0.001). High similarity in potential percolation rates in vegetation patches of E. superba and D. californica suggests an overall beneficial effect of both native and exotic species on ecohydrological ecosystem services. However, the exotic species E. lehmanniana showed higher shallow infiltration than B. gracilis. Our study demonstrates that rather than promoting preferentially native grass species, species-specific functional traits should be considered for restoring soil–water related regulatory ecosystem services in degraded grasslands.

Study of radioactive contamination in silts and aerosols at Aldama City, Mexico, due to the operation of a yellow-cake processing plant

The city of Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico is located 30 km NNE of Chihuahua city. Three high-volume collectors with PM10 heads were placed in specific locations in Aldama during the year 2011 to measure radioisotope concentrations in the air. The city area of 16 km2 was divided into 64 squares of 500 × 500 m. At the vertices of the grid, silt samples were taken between January and June 2011, before the rains began. The concentrations of natural, cosmogenic, and anthropogenic radioactive isotopes were calculated in both filters and silts samples. The isotopes selected for the measurement were 238U, 232Th, 7Be, 137Cs, and 40K. Measurements of PM10 and silts were performed during 2011, coinciding with the accident at Fukushima, Japan, on March 11. For this reason, we could see the 137Cs in PM10 increase between April and July; with the arrival of the rains, the 137Cs concentration began to decrease in the air. The concentration of PM10 measured by the equipment located at the Mexican Uranium plant (URAMEX, initials in Spanish) that was processing radioactive ores exceeded the standard values in February and March, when the air velocity increases. At City Hall, the concentration of PM10 surpassed the value of the standard between May and July. This increased concentration is likely due to increased automobile traffic because City Hall is located in the city center. At a private home, the concentration of PM10 surpassed the standard on several days during the year because the home is located on the outskirts of the city, where most of the streets are not paved. Due to the high concentrations of PM10, especially at the collection point located at the private home, it is necessary to start taking steps to mitigate their spread before they cause health problems in the younger population and in older adults.Implications: The radioisotope content found in the PM10 confirms that the decision to place the Mexican Uranium plant (URAMEX, initials in Spanish) processing radioactive ores near the town of Aldama was not well thought out. Because the monitoring work was carried out in 2011 and coincided with the Fukushima accident, an increased concentration of 137Cs could be detected in the PM10. We made recommendations to the municipal authorities of the city to mitigate the concentration of particles in the air.

Leaving a Mark

Leaving a Mark John Tytell (bio) The Trace Forrest Gander New Directions Publishing www.ndbooks.com 240 Pages; Print, $22.95 Forrest Gander’s The Trace is a compelling—one might say stunning—novel. I would place it in the tradition of Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano (1947). Though it’s not as linguistically ravishing and reckless, it surely spirals on the same downward trajectory to a Mexican hell. The Trace comes to us with the blistering heat of Cormac McCarthy. Like Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky (1949), another Conradian tale of the white man as interloper in unfamiliar terrain, it rivets on the tension between an unmatched couple on a sort of literary pilgrimage that get detoured into a devouring desert. The two pilgrims in Gander’s spare, exquisitely chiseled story are Hoa and Dale. Hoa is a potter, daughter of a Vietnamese woman who had worked as a clerk in the American Embassy in the late 1960s and married an American accountant. Hoa studied art at the University of North Carolina at Ashville where Dale teaches history, and where they met in the library stacks. Married for twenty years, their lives have become transformed by their only son’s auto accident. Declan has had a painful recovery, and just prior to completing his undergraduate work, he drops out and disconnects entirely from them. Headstrong, anti-authoritarian, given to spasmodic argumentativeness, Declan has vanished in an angry void. In the wake of his absence, Hoa blames Dale; she relies on sleeping pills, and he relies on anti-anxiety medication. They both feel depressed and somehow guilty. Waiting to hear some word, a telephone message assuring safety, months pass, and their marriage becomes mechanical: take-out food eaten on TV trays. During his summer break from teaching, as part of a book he is writing, Dale decides to pursue the actual trail of Ambrose Bierce, perhaps the best-known disappearance in American literature. A caustic journalist and short story writer, Bierce decided in 1913 to interview the Mexican rebel Pancho Villa, despite his lack of Spanish. Crossing the Texan border at El Paso on horseback, he reputedly joined Villa’s forces near the city of Chihuahua. There, all traces of his existence end, and the probability is that wounded in a skirmish with Mexican federales, his remains lie in an unmarked grave. But there are various versions of his death—enough for legend—and Dale is on a search for traces. Hoa decides to accompany him although he warns there will be hours and hours of driving. The couple flies from Ashville to El Paso where they rent a Chevrolet Prizm to proceed south and visit the places near the Chihuahua desert that Bierce is supposed to have explored—a silver and zinc mine called La Hacienta de los Muertos, a battlefield and several small towns. The desert with its vertical canyon walls, volcanic massifs, and serrated mountains is a moonscape of cacti and yucca, mesquite and brush in sand. The desiccating threat of its heat shimmer, and the lacerating sun becomes a dominating presence in the novel, “a terrain so brutally indifferent to human beings that, but for the road, it managed to repel almost any trace of the world’s most aggressive species.” The journey is demarcated by bizarre occurrences. The novel begins with a short graphic scene of macabre Aztec horror near a town called La Esmeralda where a Mexican drug bandit with a bobbing head methodically skins the decapitated head of a victim and drapes the skin over a soccer ball; the quartered remains of the same body are later manifested to Dale and Hoa when they reach the zocalo of Esmeralda. As they proceed on their journey, they see hovering vultures and rattlesnakes, spiders, a giant tarantula, and later an “inky torrent” of bats streaming out of a cave in which Dale seeks shelter. Portents appear along the way: the memento mori on the sides of the road commemorating crashes; a dog sitting on the road mourning another dead dog. Weirdly, while driving, Dale compulsively admits the memory of a college acid trip that ended in an underground crawl in a...

Avoceta americana (Recurvirostra americana): primeros registros reproductivos en Chihuahua, México

La avoceta americana (Recurvirostra americana) es un ave playera que se encuentra asociada a los cuerpos de agua poco profundos; de figura estilizada y apariencia inconfundible, pertenece a la familia Recurvirostridae. El área de reproducción de esta especie, reconocida hasta ahora, no abarca el estado de Chihuahua, México, donde está catalogada como un ave migratoria. Debido a que no hay ningún estudio en el que se reporte la presencia de nidos de avocetas en este estado de la república mexicana, el descubrimiento de nidos en los años 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012 y 2013 cerca de los poblados de Janos, Ascensión, Palomas, Cuauhtémoc, Gómez Farías y la ciudad de Chihuahua representa los primeros registros de anidación documentados de esta especie en el estado. En 2013 hicimos un estudio más detallado en 12 nidos próximos a la ciudad de Chihuahua, y notamos que en el área hay una gran cantidad de peligros para los huevos y pollos de avoceta americana y para las aves asociadas como el candelero americano (Himantopus mexicanus) y el chorlo tildío (Charadrius vociferus), ya que son aves que anidan a nivel del suelo. La presencia de especies depredadoras como perros, gatos y animales silvestres así como de humanos, vacas y caballos que pueden pisar los huevos y pollos podría incidir en la supervivencia de estas especies.

Situational Diagnosis of the Social Sphere of Elders Living in Retirement Homes

A situational diagnosis of the social sphere of elder permanent residents at retirement homes in Chihuahua City was created with the aid of the Social Resource Scale instrument. From the 51 participants, there were 30 female and 21 male elders. The results and conclusions of the present study highlight two major needs: a systematic assessment of permanent residents in retirement homes and the implementation of a physical activation program. The proposed physical activation program must focus on both, the recovery of motor independence and the increase of socialization activities which allows members of the retired community to improve their daily routine performance and lessens the work load on their caretakers.

Situational Diagnosis of Mental and Functional Areas of Community-Dwelling Adults

A situational analysis of issues related to mental and functional areas of elderly residents of permanent stay of the city of Chihuahua was performed. It participated in the study 51 subjects, 30 women and 21 men, a battery of three scales were applied to assess cognitive aspects, emotional aspects and indicators related to the ability to perform activities of daily living of the elderly participants. The results obtained and the conclusions derived there from highlight the need for a systematic assessment in the halls of permanent residence and the urge to start a physical activation program that emphasizes directly in recovery motor independence and indirectly increasing in activities of group living in such a way that allows seniors Community-Dwelling enhance your ability to perform activities of daily life and reduce the burden on their caregivers.

Reference values for cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose in a population of Hispanic children from 6 to 11 y, in the northern border of Mexico and the United States of America

Overweight and obesity in children in the Mexico-USA border have evolved differently to the rest of their respective countries. New reference values of cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose are required to treatment. To determine the reference values of cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose in Hispanic children between 6 and 11 years in the Mexico-USA border. A prospective, cross-sectional, descriptive and observational study. A population of Hispanic children between 6 and 11 years of both boys and girls, belonging to three public institutions in the cities of Ensenada and Chihuahua, randomly selected, were studied. The study variables were the levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG) and glucose (G). From 300 subjects studied just 54 children completed the study. Higher average values of TC (168.7 ± 27.2 mg / dl), TG (80.6 ± 48.4 mg / dl) and G (88.3 ± 8.9 mg / dl) were observed. An additional behavior was founded, never reported previously to the limit of the knowledge of the authors; glucose levels of the children studied decreased with increased of cholesterol and triglycerides. To discard a random relationship between the variables, the Pearson correlation coefficient was determined between waist circumference and BMI, verifying an inverse association with G and direct with the TG. The reference values for Hispanic children between 6 and 11 years living on the northern border of Mexico-USA differ with respect to the national average values of the countries studied. Further studies are needed in larger populations to confirm the trend ob served in glucose levels of normal children, overweight and obese.

Uso y acceso a las TIC en estudiantes de escuelas secundarias públicas en la ciudad de Chihuahua, México: inclusión en la didáctica y en la alfabetización digital

This paper addresses the issue of the digital divide in students of public secondary schools at Chihuahua City, Mexico. It seeks to identify potential inequality of opportunities with regards to subjects’ access to information, knowledge and education through the ICT (internet, mobile telephony, broadband and television). The study takes three schools as investigative stage, using the survey as a data collection instrument, identifying patterns of behavior regarding: general knowledge of them, access to computer equipment and internet, and characterization of their use. Other aspects of analysis are the identification of the educational level of parents and access to technology resources available for academic and non-academic purposes in various application areas (home, school and social environment). The proposal concludes, that it is through the recollection of alternatives suggested by the teachers themselves to incorporate ICT for teaching purposes in a systematic and planned fashion, whose greatest reflection manifests in better digital literacy indicators.

Lung cancer mortality and radon concentration in a chronically exposed neighborhood in Chihuahua, Mexico: a geospatial analysis.

This study correlated lung cancer (LC) mortality with statistical data obtained from government public databases. In order to asses a relationship between LC deaths and radon accumulation in dwellings, indoor radon concentrations were measured with passive detectors randomly distributed in Chihuahua City. Kriging (K) and Inverse-Distance Weighting (IDW) spatial interpolations were carried out. Deaths were georeferenced and Moran's I correlation coefficients were calculated. The mean values (over n = 171) of the interpolation of radon concentrations of deceased's dwellings were 247.8 and 217.1 Bq/m3, for K and IDW, respectively. Through the Moran's I values obtained, correspondingly equal to 0.56 and 0.61, it was evident that LC mortality was directly associated with locations with high levels of radon, considering a stable population for more than 25 years, suggesting spatial clustering of LC deaths due to indoor radon concentrations.

Using TRNSYS Simulation to Optimize the Design of a Solar Water Distillation System

We present the modeling, TRNSYS simulation, and parametric analysis of a solar water distillation system based on a humidification-dehumidification cycle. The thermal processes that constitute the cycle are carried out in devices designed for maximum individual efficiency. In order to achieve this, it is necessary for the evaporative process (in which an air current is humidified) to happen at the highest temperature attainable without boiling. This maximizes the amount of vapor that can be carried by the air current. This process is performed in a vertical packed column, where a stream of hot water falls as a current of hot air ascends in countercurrent and directly contacts the water. The air at the exit of the tower is saturated with vapor at the same temperature as the entering water, thus maximizing the amount of moisture carried. The hot and humid air then passes through a condenser that releases heat to the atmosphere, bringing air to nearly ambient temperature and maximizing distillate condensation. In order to achieve the previous, it is necessary for the thermal capture and storage system to work with thermal oil, an insulated storage tank, and evacuated-tube solar collectors. The system must maintain a steady oil temperature of 110°C. We propose a condenser based on heat pipes and with excess heat transfer area for dumping heat to the atmosphere, in order for the condensation temperature to be as close as possible to atmospheric. The efficiency of the distiller is substantially increased by forcing the process to occur between the described temperature limits, not unlike what happens in the power cycles of heat engines. The thermal oil transfers energy to the air and water currents through two heat exchangers, and the insulated storage tank makes it possible to operate the system at night for as long as sufficiently hot oil is still available. A flow control system regulates the temperature reached by the water that flows to the evaporation tower.We used the simulation platform TRNSYS to model this system, including the evaporation tower and condenser. Using the climatic conditions of the city of Chihuahua, Mexico, we performed a parametric study of the system and determined the effect of varying the number of solar collectors, volume of the thermal tank, and flow rate of water. We simulated the behavior of the system over a year of continued operation, measuring the amount of condensate produced during that period. The objective of this analysis was to determine the variation of distillate production, in kilograms of water distilled per year per square meter of solar collector, and per cubic meter of thermal tank. This was used to determine the optimal characteristics of the proposed distillation system.

Diagnosis of the Physical Area of Community-Dwelling Adults

A situational analysis of aspects related to the physical area of elderly residents of permanent stay of the city of Chihuahua was performed. Participating in the study 51 subjects, 30 women and 21 men, Tinetti and trunk flexion EUROFIT scales were applied to assess fall risk and range of motion. The poor results in balance, gait and range of motion can be stated that most of them are in serious risk of falling. The results obtained show the urgency of starting a physical activation program that emphasizes directly in recovery mobile independence so that enable seniors asylees enhance your ability to perform activities of daily life and reduce the burden on their caregivers.

Aerobic exercise program on blood lipids in women between 40 and 55 years old

Objective: Evaluate the effect of a physical activity program on the blood lipid profile in women between 40 and 55 years old. Methods: 7 female participants from the city of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico, on a program of moderateintensity physical activity lasting 4 months, evaluated before and after the implementation of the program in the variables of total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and HDL, as well as the atherogenic index and cardiovascular risk. Data were analyzed with Student t test for related samples with a significance level of 0.05. Results: Total cholesterol levels and LDL in samples collected after physical exercise program decreased significantly compared to those collected before the implementation of the exercise program, while statistically, HDL and triglycerides did not show significant changes. The atherogenic index and cardiovascular risk showed positive trends, thus favoring that moderate intensity aerobic exercise decreased cardiovascular risk in women reaching the perimenopause period.

Identification of nitrous oxide emissions from green areas of Chihuahua City irrigated with treated wastewater

Since 2000, the city of Chihuahua had a distribution system of treated wastewater for irrigation of green areas and has replaced this water for processes that do not require the consumption of drinking water. This replacement was necessary in order to meet the growing demand for potable water, which has exceeded the current supply of 700 L (184,88 gallons) per second. Nowadays it is necessary to identify and assess the risks to public health and the environment due to the substitution of drinking water by treated wastewater in the last 10 yr. Treated wastewater contains compounds whose effects have not been evaluated when used for irrigation in public green areas. Therefore, it is not known whether there is a danger to the health of park visitors due to exposure and/or inhalation of the emitted gases, accidental ingestion of water, or impact to the environment. The purpose of the research, using an experimental prototype, is to identify the changes from nitrogen present in the treated wastewater to nitrous oxide. The research objective is the generation of data to simulate a regional scale at this stage, which will be analyzed and statistically validated using Minitab and Origin software. The experiment was performed using three different samples to compare water quality: drinking water, treated wastewater, and water with nitrogen-based fertilizer (urea). Prototypes were filled with two types of soil: sand and clay. Each type of water was sprinkled on the prototype, grass was planted in it, and the prototype was equipped with samplers to capture the gas in the root zone. The authors found high emissions of nitrous oxide in the clay-filled lysimeters, and climate and growing conditions of vegetation were the most important factors for producing nitrous oxide. Implications Major problems in the ecosystem arise from solutions that are not based on environmental public policy research or experimentation. For example, before application a specific policy or regulation, research should be performed to evaluate long term effects to the ecosystem and this can be done through close monitoring.

Imperiled Femininity: The Dismembering of Citizenship in Northern Mexico

AbstractThis article examines how historical constructions of Mexican citizenship are implicated in women's current performances of femininity in Chihuahua City. Throughout much of Mexican history, women's rights to life and bodily integrity did not inhere within their own persons but were extensions of the rights of their fathers and husbands. Women living outside male protection had no guarantee of security, and those living within such protection were only guaranteed security from men outside of their relationships of dependency. The following work argues that the legacy of dependent citizenship has created a “bodies politic,” which structures the current system of impunity for gendered violence, and that these structures continue to have an impact on the reimagining of femininity. Drawing on 13 months of fieldwork spent investigating which performances of femininity women most associated with security; this research examines the quotidian strategies through which women are negotiating their need and/or desire to expand upon such performances with their continued desire for security in the increasingly dangerous environment of Northern Mexico.

The Origins of Pearson, Chihuahua: A Photographic Essay

The village that we know today as Juan Mata Ortiz came into existence under very different circumstances. The brilliant American electrical engineer and entrepreneur Fred Stark Pearson established the Mexico Transportation Company, Ltd., in Canada on February 17, 1909. Within a few months the company name was changed by a special act of parliament to the Mexico North Western Railway Co. (Ferrocarril Noroeste de Mexico). Four railroad systems were acquired to create the Mexico North Western. The largest was the Rio Grande, Sierra Madre and Pacific, which ran from Ciudad Juarez to Terrazas south of Nuevo Casas Grandes. The Chihuahua and Pacific ran from Chihuahua City to Minaca, while the Sierra Madre and Pacific ran from Temosachic to Madera. Also acquired was a subsidiary of the Rio Grande, Sierra Madre and Pacific, the El Paso Southern, which owned a bridge across the Rio Grande and track to its terminal in the United States, thus providing access to the entire railroad system of North America via El Paso. In addition to the railroad system the company acquired substantial timber rights to the forests of the Sierra Madre. Approximately 2.4 million acres, including a lumber mill in Madera, were obtained from the Sierra Madre Land and Lumber Company. An additional 200,000 hectares known as the Murphy Tract were acquired from the Development Corporation of America, bringing the total to approximately three million acres of timber. Pearson then renovated the Madera Mill, enhanced its capacity, and extended the rail line south to Madera. While work on the line was beginning in late 1909, construction of what was reputed to be the largest lumber mill in North America was started in a town that came to be named Pearson.

Uranium in the Surrounding of San Marcos-Sacramento River Environment (Chihuahua, Mexico)

The main interest of this study is to assess whether uranium deposits located in the San Marcos outcrops (NW of Chihuahua City, Mexico) could be considered as a source of U-isotopes in its surrounding environment. Uranium activity concentrations were determined in biota, ground, and surface water by either alpha or liquid scintillation spectrometries. Major ions were analyzed by ICP-OES in surface water and its suspended matter. For determining uranium activity in biota, samples were divided in parts. The results have shown a possible lixiviation and infiltration of uranium from geological substrate into the ground and surface water, and consequently, a transfer to biota. Calculated annual effective doses by ingestion suggest that U-isotopes in biota could not negligibly contribute to the neighboring population dose. By all these considerations, it is concluded that in this zone there is natural enhancement of uranium in all environmental samples analyzed in the present work.

Irma Voth by Miriam Toews

72 World Literature Today reviews irresolute encounter between a man and himself as he was a year previously ; the unforgettable “Wolves” by José Luis Zárate, in which a “blizzard of wolves, thousands, millions” inexplicably descend from the mountains and transform forever the inhabitants of a village in their path; and Carmen Rioja’s “The Nahual Offering,” a veritable maze of overlapping dreams that manipulate time to devastating effect by juxtaposing an ancient ritual against the depredations wrought by urbanization. This sampler suffices to indicate the main features of this collection. First, its contents are “stories” only in the loosest sense of the word. Second , in many stories, elements of the fantastic are understated, ambiguous, and may not be present at all. Third, many require the reader to supply meaning, interpretation, and even closure. Fourth, most are very short. Our sampler also illustrates that Mexican fiction of the fantastic has more in common with the European fantastic than with its anglophone counterparts. Never forced into genre pigeonholes by market forces, writers of the Mexican fantastic were free to adopt any fictional form, from conventional narratives to prose poems, from dream fragments to visionary vignettes. Yet even as they freely adapted narrative strategies such as expressionism, surrealism, and the absurd, many of their stories germinated from legends, ancient myths, and animistic beliefs from Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past. These remarks suggest what general readers most need but do not get in Three Messages: an introduction in which the editors describe their goals and criteria, and story notes that provide essential context about Mexico, Mexican fiction, and the place and nature of the Mexican fantastic. Happily, you can fill this gap with Dalkey Archive’s Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction (2009). Its introduction and sixteen representative stories, some fantastic, others not, by authors born after 1945 also fill out the pointillistic picture of the landscape of Mexican fiction created by the thirty-four (much shorter) stories in Three Messages. All readers interested in Mexican fiction will relish Three Messages, as will adventuresome enthusiasts of the fantastic. Keep your mind open, savor each story, and expect the unexpected . You won’t be disappointed. Michael A. Morrison University of Oklahoma Miriam Toews. Irma Voth. New York. HarperCollins. 2011. isbn 9780062070180 Readers familiar with the work of the Canadian writer Miriam Toews will recognize in Irma Voth, her fifth novel, her characteristic use of the female voice, terse dialogue, and insightful if cutting commentary on Mennonite culture, although in a different setting—the Mennonite colonies of northern Mexico. In an isolated community in the state of Chihuahua, nineteen-yearold Irma Voth lives in “forced separation ” from her family, ostracized by her rigid father for her marriage to a non-Mennonite Mexican who now has abandoned her and for her longstanding irreverence toward their Mennonite culture. The arrival of a film crew from Mexico City to make a movie about “beautiful people in a beautiful part of the world” aggravates the situation when Irma becomes the Plattdeutsch (Mennonite Low German) interpreter to the Russian Mennonite who has come from Germany to play the wife of the male lead (a local Mennonite). The presence of outsiders from the city further upsets the tenuous balance when Irma’s thirteen-year-old sister, Aggie, distances herself from her father. And hints of violence underscore the story: the drug connections of Irma’s husband and even some Mennonites, the vague menace of the film director’s pet pit bull, the quick tempers of both Irma’s husband and her father, and the secret that caused the family’s sudden move to Mexico from Canada when Irma was thirteen. The coming-of-age story turns picaresque as Irma abandons her home and the film, fleeing to Chihuahua City, Acapulco, and Mexico City with Aggie and their younger sister, Ximena. In the capital they embrace what Irma comes to understand as the “waking life,” and they learn city and countercultural ways. Aggie studies art and Irma studies people: “I wanted to observe these people and make notes in my notebook.” (Toews’s style, in fact, sometimes feels like a diary.) Aggie’s paintings and Irma’s notes eventually become the catharsis that...

PUBLIC SEWER SYSTEM AND DRAINAGE OF A CITY IN THE NORTH OF MEXICO

Background and Aims: Owing to the fact that the workers of the sewer system of Chihuahua City are presumably exposed to various risks situations and to environments potentially harmful for their he...

Coliform and Metal Contamination in Lago de Colina, a Recreational Water Body in Chihuahua State, Mexico

Lago de Colina (Colina Lake) is located about 180 km south of the city of Chihuahua (Mexico), and during the Semana Santa (Holy Week) vacation period its recreational use is high. The objective of this study was to quantify coliform and heavy metal levels in this water body before and after the Holy Week vacation period in 2010. Twenty sampling points were randomly selected and two water samples were collected at each point near the surface (0.30 m) and at 1 m depth. After the Holy Week vacation the same twenty points were sampled at the same depths. Therefore, a total 80 water samples were analyzed for fecal and total coliforms and levels of the following metals: Al, As, B, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb, Se, Si and Zn. It was hypothesized that domestic tourism contaminated this water body, and as a consequence, could have a negative impact on visitor health. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) study was performed for each element and its interactions considering a factorial design where factor A was sample date and factor B was sample depth. Fecal coliforms were only detected at eight sampling points in the first week, but after Holy Week, both fecal and total coliforms were detected at most sampling points. The concentrations of Al, B, Na, Ni and Se were only statistically different for factor A. The levels of Cr, Cu, K and Mg was different for both date and depth, but the dual factor interaction was not significant. The amount of Ca and Zn was statistically different due to date, depth and their interaction. No significant differences were found for any factor or the interaction for the elements As, Fe and Mn. Because of the consistent results, it is concluded that local tourism is contaminating the recreational area of Colina Lake, Chihuahua, Mexico.