After days of protests, the governor of Chubut, Mariano Arcioni, had to back down. He sent to the provincial Legislature (local legislative power) the repeal of a mining law that the same body had approved five days earlier. This Tuesday, December 21, the Legislature repealed the rule.
Last Thursday the Chubut Legislature approved a law that enabled the start-up of large-scale mining (or mega-mining) in two departments of the province, Gastre and Telsen, where Project Navidad, belonging to the Canadian mining company Panamerican, plans to operate. Silver. The deposit was acquired by the company 11 years ago and seeks to exploit silver, copper and lead.
When the news was known, in Rawson, the provincial capital, great protests were unleashed, also in the city of Trelew, which were intensely repressed. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has taken up the case to investigate it.
During the nights of Thursday 16 and Friday 17 December, 16 public buildings were burned, including the Government House. On Monday there was a fire at the headquarters of the newspaper ‘El Chubut’, in circumstances that are being investigated. Governor Arcioni denounces the “anti-mining groups” and has even mentioned an alleged “ideologue” in a recorded message. It is something that will be determined by Justice.
On the same Monday, the governor, under the pressure of the protests, announced that he would request the repeal of the norm, something that the Legislature voted on Tuesday. But this story that is not over yet, did not begin now. The dispute over large-scale mining in this Argentine province has been going on for almost 20 years.
120 days turned into 18 years
In 2003, in the city of Esquel, in the cordilleran area of Chubut, 82% of the population said “No to the Mine” through a plebiscite, which gave rise to the first provincial law (Law 5001) in Argentina that prohibited open-pit mega-mining with the use of toxic substances such as cyanide. It was the Canadian miner Meridian Gold (today Yamana Gold) that wanted to extract gold in the Esquel mountains.
After the enactment of Law 5001, several governments and mining capitals tried to advance with something foreseen in said law: a “zoning” to establish in which parts of the province the activity could be carried out, something that had to be defined within a period of time. 120 days after his sanction. This is what ended up sanctioning the “mining zoning” law, repealed after the protests.
On the other hand, from 2003 to date there have been two popular initiatives with a semi-direct democracy mechanism that establishes that with a certain number of signatures from the population, the legislature must deal with a bill. The first was in 2014, collected 14,000 signatures and was totally modified in its spirit, which was to extend the limitations imposed by Law 5001 to large-scale mining. At the time, images of legislators’ cell phones were known in which representatives of mining companies dictated the content of the modifications. Then there was the most recent popular initiative, from 2020-2021, in the midst of the pandemic, with more than 30,000 signatures, whose objective was also to reinforce the prohibition of mega-mining throughout the provincial territory.
“Water is worth more than gold”
Throughout these years, there has been a conflict between the political-business leadership and the population of Chubut, which has been organized through “assemblies” in the different cities, Esquel, in the mountains, and Puerto Madryn, Rawson, Trelew, Comodoro Rivadavia, in the east, and even in the Central Plateau, where it has the Panamerican Silver concession. The conflict cuts across the entire Chubut society: scientific and religious institutions, unions, political parties, sports clubs, artists, have positions taken on the issue.
At the heart of that conflict is the discussion about the use of water, which confronts the political and business leadership with a huge portion of the general population. The former promote the development of mega-mining, an activity that consumes large amounts of water.
In the province there is only one river, the Chubut River, which could be affected by the activity, denounce those who oppose this activity and members of university institutions. The Chubut is a river with a low flow, with 51 cubic meters per second compared to the almost 800 m3 of the Santa Cruz River, or the more than 1,000 m3 of the Río Negro (in neighboring Patagonian provinces), and supplies half of the population from the province. That is why those who oppose mega-mining here have as their motto: “Water is worth more than gold.”
On the same day the mining zoning law was approved – finally repealed – several towns in Chubut were without water, including Comodoro Rivadavia, the most populous city in Patagonia with more than 300,000 inhabitants. In fact, in late August, the provincial legislature declared a “Water Emergency.”
“Mining zoning is the gateway for activity throughout the province”
The governor of the province, who in the past had held positions against mining activity; the president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández; leaders of most of the province’s political parties and union leaders that would be involved in mining production (mainly construction and trucks) have argued that it was a beneficial project, which would generate “economic development”, infrastructure and 7,000 jobs. direct work in the so-called Central Plateau, which has a very low population density. Arcioni and his political allies also argued that “the Cordillera is not touched” (in reference to the Esquel area), that “cyanide is not used,” that “the Chubut River is not touched,” and that activity in the area of the deposit “has social consensus.”
But the citizen assemblies denounce that the “zoning” can be expanded, affecting the course of the river, as established in the same law in its Article No. 7, which says: “In case the need to update or expand the Mining Zoning based on technical and objective criteria, said proposal will be submitted to the Provincial Legislature for treatment “. Silvia de Los Santos, lawyer and assembly member argued: “Mining zoning is the gateway for activity throughout the province, with projects that have clandestinely begun their exploratory phases.”
For his part, Martín Cerdá, Minister of Hydrocarbons of Chubut (the law enforcement authority), said at the time: “One of the strengths of the project is that the issue of water and the Chubut River was protected. developing any productive activity near the river is quite restrictive in that sense. Any expansion of the zoning will be done after the environmental impact studies are carried out with the participation of the University, geologists and the private sector. “
Anyway, Viviana Moreno, assembly member of Esquel and biochemistry, pointed out that “although the law prohibits the use of cyanide, it enables other types of substances of varied toxicity such as xanthates used by the flotation method and does not even rule out leaching processes , with mercury or sulfuric acid solutions. The chosen product and the method depend on the metal of interest to be extracted. The gold is extracted with cyanide or mercury and the uranium with sulfuric acid “.
In turn, the native communities whose territories would be affected in the area do not agree with the activity and denounce the breach of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which establishes prior consultation with native communities for any productive undertaking in their territories and have filed appeals in court to avoid zoning.
In this context, in addition to repealing the law, Governor Arcioni announced that in January 2022 work will begin on a provincial plebiscite on the development of mining activity in that territory.
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