The Rio Motagua? More like the Raging Motagua! Discover how this mighty river messed with our containment boom system—and what we’re doing to fix it!

Now, the Rio Motagua is always strong, but it can become an absolute rager during the rainy season. Ultimately, the rapid change in water level caused some of the boom system’s anchoring lines to break, and the boom floated downriver.

We’re happy to report that no crew members were injured during this event and all sections of the boom were safely and quickly recovered.

Now that we’ve seen what the Rio Motagua can really do, we’re working with our engineers to upgrade the anchoring lines to heavy-duty chain while we wait for the water to drop to a safe working level. At that time, the boom will be reinstalled and the cleanup will continue. 

In the meantime, the boom team has been diverted to the coastline surrounding the mouth of the Rio Motagua where plastic from the river tends to accumulate.

There is no playbook for cleaning the ocean and every day is an adventure! This is the first real hiccup we’ve had since we began testing this equipment, making it our most successful test to date. 

We’ve already stopped tens of thousands of pounds of trash from entering the ocean, employed additional captains and crews from the local community, and learned just how difficult cleaning the environment can be—and we’re only getting started.

The crew wanted to send a huge thank you for your continued support as we do everything in our power to clean the ocean, rivers, and coastlines in Guatemala and beyond.