limit glacier mining activities with new bill

The Lower House debated a new bill that contemplates the protection of glaciers and that seeks to limit mining activities in ice fields and their surrounding areas.
The arrival of this project to Congress was surprising, since until a few hours before, two glacier protection bills existed, one created by a ruling party senator and another created by an opposition deputy, each irreconcilable with the other. Both had caused strong criticisms in the last few days.
However, kirchnerite senator Daniel Filmus and opposition deputy Miguel Bonasso finally sat to dialogue and were able to arrive at a consensus project, which they immediately boosted for debate in the Lower House.

Filmus had created his own project after President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner vetoed a glacier protection law two years ago boosted by Bonasso -until then a member of the ruling party-, that was approved by both houses of Parliament. The Head of State vetoed the aforementioned law alleging that its application could bring negative consequences for the economy of mining countries.
However, environmental organizations accused the government of having vetoed the law in order to protect the projects of Canadian mining company Barrick Gold, specifically the Pascua Lama project, situated on the high mountains.
The agreement between Filmus and Bonasso to create only one project surprised the ruling party blocs, some of which abandoned the session. "We achieved a project that really defends the future of Argentines," senator Filmus alleged in declarations to a local news station.
The project created under agreement includes, after a request made by Filmus, a declaration of glaciers as "goods of public character" and the protection of areas of ice in the medium and low parts of mountains and not only in its highest parts, as proposed in Bonasso's original bill.
The law that was debated prohibits the "liberation, dispersion, or disposition of substances or polluting elements, products, chemicals, or waste of any nature or volume" on the glaciers and the surrounding area.
It also specifically prohibits "mining and hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation" and the "installation of industries or development of works or industrial activities."
During the debate, Bonasso reiterated his criticisms towards Barrick Gold, its production activities with regards the use of cyanide and its connections with members of the San Juan province government.
"We don't want the Andes mountains that are in danger to be dedicated to gold mining with cyanide, we don't want this to be for the benefit of a few people's pockets. We want water for all Argentines," the opposition deputy highlighted.


Increasingly vocal groups oppose a gold mining project along the Chile-Argentina border because it would mean removing three glaciers in the Andes Mountains.

Ecologists, indigenous communities, farmers, political leaders and civil society groups are mobilising in Chile, Argentina and even Europe against Pascua-Lama, a giant mining project of the Canadian transnational Barrick Gold.

The Pascua-Lama site extends to both sides of the Argentine-Chilean border, with 80 percent in the latter, and lies under the glaciers known as Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza. They feed into Huasco valley, 660 km north of Santiago, supplying irrigation water for some 70,000 small farmers.

More than 2,500 people protested against the project on Jun. 4 in a festive march through the streets of Vallenar, a town 150 km west of the mining site, which is also 300 km northwest of the Argentine city of San Juan.

That same day, a thousand people marched in Santiago to protest the Barrick Gold project, while in Barcelona, London and Cambridge events were held to denounce the plan and in defence of the glaciers, organised by the non-governmental group Vidau (Life, Cooperation and Development).

The Pascua-Lama deposit holds proven reserves of 17 million ounces of gold and 635 million ounces of silver. The transnational plans to invest 1.5 billion dollars over 20 years to exploit it, with annual output in the first five years of 750,000 ounces of gold and 30 million ounces of silver.

Barrick Gold proposes to begin work on the project in January 2006, but before that, it must respond satisfactorily within 90 days to a lengthy questionnaire on the project's impacts, presented in early June by the Chilean government's national environment commission, CONAMA.

''Water is worth more than gold. The Pascua-Lama project is a brutal example of the type of economic development Chile is carrying out,'' Lucio Cuenca, the Chilean coordinator of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), told Tierramérica.

Ecologists say the Andean glaciers, one of the Earth's important reserves of freshwater, are suffering sharp decline as a result of global warming, and that in this case the removal of 20 hectares of ice as part of the Pascua-Lama project - with a volume of 300,000 to 800,000 cubic metres of ice - would cause serious environmental harm.

In addition is the contamination from mining operations of the waters that irrigate Huasco valley. ''Gold mining dumps 79 tonnes of waste for every 28 grams of gold, and produces 96 percent of the world's arsenic emissions,'' according to economist Marcel Claude, vice-president of the international environmental group Oceana.

Foreign trade expert José Francisco Lihn warns that water contamination from mining will prevent Huasco valley farmers from exporting their olives, grapes and vegetables because they would not meet the environmental standards of the international markets.

Barrick Gold has conducted an intensive publicity campaign, including television ads that paint the project as environmentally friendly in terms of water treatment, and stress its claims that it would create 5,000 direct jobs during the mine's production phase.

Carlos Vilches, the region's legislative deputy and member of the conservative National Renovation Party, said the fears are unfounded and assured that there are experiences in Chile of mining in glacier areas with environmental impact controls, both by private companies and the government mining agency CODELCO.

Of quite a different opinion is Sara Larraín, director of the Sustainable Chile Programme, who told Tierramérica that Barrick Gold's ''avarice and obstinacy'' prompt the transnational to ''improvise technical proposals'' for the environmental authorities, citing the supposedly successful removal of a glacier for one of its mines in Central Asia.

''No glaciologist, no scientific institute, no known study supports the risky experiment that the Barrick firm conducted in the republic of Kyrgyzstan,'' said the ecologist.

The Toronto-based transnational, the world's third leading gold producer, hopes to rise to second place with the Pascua-Lama project. It launched studies in the glaciers in 1991, and in 1997 acquired, through its Chilean affiliate Empresa Nevada, the Chañarcillo or Chollay rural estate at the location.

But the community of Huascoaltinos, made up largely of farmers of Diaguita origin (an ancestral indigenous group from northern Chile), filed a lawsuit against the company in 2001 for its seizure of their lands, because the purchase was made from just one member of the group.

Nancy Yáñez, an attorney with the Observatory of Indigenous People's Rights, said there are legal foundations for annulling the transaction, in virtue of laws protecting the heritage of indigenous communities that require the agreement of all its members in sales of their ancestral territories.

Those opposed to the project also point to the controversial history of Barrick Gold, purchased in 1983 by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and also linked to Venezuelan magnate Gustavo Cisneros, owner of major communications media among other interests, and to the family of U.S. President George W. Bush.

According to the book ''The Best Democracy Money Can Buy'', by U.S. journalist Greg Palast, president George H.W. Bush (1989-1993), the current president's father, exerted pressure in Indonesia and Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo) for the benefit of Barrick Gold mining and petroleum deals.

(* Gustavo González is an IPS correspondent. Originally published Jun. 18 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)

the treaty was the result of years of lobbying by some of the world’s biggest mining companies. Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold, Falconbridge and Tenke Mining set up local offices or subsidiaries, joined the National Mining Chambers and/or deployed their lobbying engines. Initially, lobbying efforts produced specific “facilitation protocols”, granting special conditions and privileges mostly to Barrick Gold and Falconbridge. The treaty provides a general framework that opens the border region to any mining TNC.

Many provisions have been added through further protocols which facilitate TNC activities, granting them privileges and exemptions. As privileges can be transferred through the sale of mining rights, they are fully covered by investment protection clauses. So Chile and Argentina must set up special border controls, grant access to the mining companies to “all types of natural resources” – including water, allow private airports in the border area, grant broad exemptions to their immigration, health, labour and sanitary laws, and grant further privileges in the future. For Chile, whatever is granted through the treaty and these protocols is strengthened and protected by means of the multiple bilateral FTAs it has signed. For Argentina, this role is so far mostly played by a Mining Code (1999), and a Law on Mining Investments (2004). Ironically a peace treaty that ended years of tensions when both countries were on the brink of war over the border areas has been used to surrender the same territories to TNCs.

Mining TNCs have been mostly absent from Argentina (except for oil and gas companies), but are well known in Chile. Demanding all kinds of guarantees and privileges, they are skilled at using every legal loophole to expand their profits. Barrick Gold, for example, has operated a gold mine in Chile for over 15 years without paying any taxes. Year after year they report losses, using different accounting tricks, such as reporting loans at unusually high interest rates, or selling the extracted mineral at unusually low prices to their own subsidiaries. Thus Chile has had almost no income from foreign mining companies, although they extract and market around half of its mineral production.

The impact of the treaty and its associated legal web is already being felt. Four massive binational projects have been approved: Pascua Lama (Barrick Gold), El Pachón (Falconbridge), Vicuña (Rio Tinto) and Amos-Andres (also Rio Tinto). In Argentina, transnational mining projects rose in number from 3 in 2002 to 150 by the end of 2005. Copper and gold is the main focus, but also silver and molybdenum. The projects are so far concentrated in the highlands of northern Chile and Argentina, and the mainly hilly extreme south. Both areas are key sources of water that feed rural communities and several cities. The mining treaty covers over 95% of the border, one of the longest in the world. Future projects will be located in more central areas, near where most of the agricultural activity takes place and where most of the Chilean population, and an important part of the Argentinian, live.

"Water is worth more than gold" says the banner at this people's action against the Treaty (Photo: noapascualama.org)

Mining technologies to be used are mostly open pit and lixiviation, both highly contaminating and requiring huge amounts of water. Open pit entails mountains being blown into small pieces to extract minerals. The daily production of thousands of tons of dust and waste and the consumption and contamination of thousands of litres of water per minute are expected in each project, plus contamination with cyanide and acids. The water supply of rural communities and cities is endangered. The Pascua Lama project could destroy three glaciers that have fed indigenous communities for centuries and allowed them to develop agriculture near the world’s driest desert (Atacama), also endangering the water supply of several medium-sized cities.

All companies involved claim in their annual reports and websites that environmental protection is a top priority. However, they have used all sorts of legal manoeuvring to avoid any responsibility. Environmental laws in Chile and Argentina require environmental impact studies for all mining projects. Companies have then requested a “provisional” permit to set up their facilities and start prospecting. Once provisional permits are granted, they are deemed to be company assets and hence are protected by investment and free trade agreements. So if an environmental study shows an unacceptable impact and the permit is revoked, under such agreements, both governments could be brought to the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and pay multimillion-dollar compensation. This possibility, in tandem with continuous and intense lobbying, has caused amazing forms of law-twisting by government and State officials. Pascua Lama, for example, will continue despite its devastating environmental impact. Chile’s National Environment Commission, whose legal mandate is to protect the environment, works closely with Barrick Gold to “solve” legal barriers and make its mining project possible.

People’s organisations on both sides of the border have actively resisted the mining projects. TNCs have used bribes, promises of future jobs, “development projects”, threats and physical intimidation to combat resistance. Opposition has continued, but so has lobbying by the corporations – and they have succeeded: a bill that protects glaciers from mining activities has slept in Chile’s Congress since 2004, but a bill recently introduced to allow the exploitation of underground water reservoirs is moving ahead.