MEXICO CITY, April 6 -- The makers of the Oscar-award winning movie 'Titanic' have requested a study of pollution in Mexico's coastal waters after local fishermen complained that the film production allegedly contaminated the ocean and reduced their catch. The fishermen told Mexican environmental officials last year that the volume of the catch in the area where the epic was filmed has declined 50 percent for some species.
The filmmakers built studios and a gigantic model of the Titanic near Rosarito, a Pacific Coast city of 60,000, located about 13 miles south of San Diego. But experts say it will be difficult to fix sole blame on the studio in a region that has been battered by El Nino storms and polluted by industrial waste. An environmental officer for 20th Century Fox studios requested the study from the oceanographic department a nearby university. Movie crews equipped a diving tank on the set with a state-of-the-art system to filter sea water before returning it to the ocean. They also installed a sewage treatment plant at the site. In July, the Warner Bros. studio plans begins filming 'Deep Blue Sea' at the site. Meanwhile, the sets have become a tourist attraction for Rosarito. Even when pollution study results are available, local environmental officials say they probably will not be conclusive. In recent months, Baja California has been battered by the most violent El Nino storm system in hisoty. The coastal waters are polluted untreated urban and industrial sewage in the Tijuana River. ---
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