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A long term strategy, but in the short term, the DOE is contemplating dredging the river.  Figueroa did not want to discuss it today, but 7news has learned that government is considering a plan to start pumping contaminated water out of the river in an effort to get the water moving.  

Briceno said he and Orange Walk South Representative Jose Mai met with Figueroa earlier this week to talk about the possibility of dredging:..

Hon. John Briceno - OW Central Area Rep.
"Dr. Omar Figueroa, we met with him on Monday. Whilst he was getting his reports, he did not fully appreciate the crisis that is in front of us. Well the immediate plans they were talking about was one, start to clean out the river with all the dead fish but now since then, they're talking about the possibility of maybe dredging the river by San Estevan to see if we could dig a deeper channel so that then the water that's stagnant can start flowing out because we have to get out this water. That's one aspect that they're doing immediately. We're talking about Hon. Mai was talking about putting aerators, you know those aerators that you put in the shrimp ponds that would throw the water up so the water can get oxygen. So we're talking those about immediate steps that we can do and hopefully that could work and certainly as soon as the rain starts to fall heavily, then the waters are going to rise up in the lagoon and because that is the catchment area, the lagoon and then come into the river and flush out the river."

And while that could be on short term solution, Briceno concedes that in the longer term, everyone will have to start taking better care of their river:

Hon. John Briceno
"The fact is the New River is contaminated and the fact is that all of us are responsible, not just one residence of Orange Walk Town, the communities along the New River, BSI, the Mennonites, all of us that have been using the river unsustainably and what we have in front of us right is now is what we call a perfect storm because of all the over use and the contaminants going on into the New River. There's a drought, it has been raining, it should have started raining from late May. We just had a decent shower last week Saturday and that is nowhere enough to flush out the river. So immediate, let's clean up the river as much as we can, secondly, set up a working committee and I think that is supposed to be made up of the town council, BSI and members from all the communities, DOE and the Mennonites so that then together we can up with this plan. Also I think we as a town, we need to stop throwing out dirty water into our drains and I know there is in particular a tortilla factory that throws off their dirty water into it and I think that needs to stop, that needs to stop now. I know that DOE has said that they are going to send 3 teams to be able to pick up all the dead fish that is causing the bad smell but if we live around the river and we see debris in the river, then let's clean it out. All of us, a little bit at a time and I think a lot can be done. We need to do something and we need to do something now. As we have been informed by the MET department, it says we can't expect rain until probably the end of the month and we need rain now."