In a sort of third-world drama, the efforts have not been concluded, in some cases, they have not even started, such as the possibility of remedying the serious mining contamination in the country and the economic diversification of communities linked to mineral extraction. What is failing the most?
ISSUE 125 | 2023
ENERGÍABolivia
CEPAL argues that to analyze the relationship between mining and sustainable development, it is important to consider the environmental impacts produced by mining operations in local territories. However, it also clarifies that it is crucial to observe the forecasts that assume the inevitable finitude of mining activities due to the depletion of the non-renewable resources it exploits.
In this case, it refers to the probability of mine closures, the management of perpetual environmental waste beyond the end of their operation. It also mentions the replacement of economic activities in the environment once mining activities are concluded, ensuring that these are important sources of analysis on the relationship between development in Bolivia and mining.
“Of the cases we examined, Empresa Minera San Cristóbal is the one that carries out the most environmental management tasks for its mining waste and its long-term management. The company takes pride in having obtained several globally recognized certifications. In fact, one of these international certifications it operates with is directly related to the environmental theme: ISO 14001 For Environmental Management,” CEPAL notes in the document “Effects of Mining on Economic, Social, and Environmental Development.”
It highlights that, for example, even in tense issues like water management, the mining company has tried to ensure access for all communities by drilling wells and ensuring that the water consumed by the population is not in contact with mining activity residues. But, at the same time, the water case shows how the company has taken on tasks that should be the responsibility of the Municipality of Colcha K, which had to invest mining royalties to address water management concerns.
According to CEPAL, “this situation perhaps shows a certain paternalism present in the relations between the community and Minera San Cristóbal, to mitigate potential conflicts,” adding that this must be added to the fact that most of the roads in the area, including the only railway completed in the 21st century in the country, have been built directly by Minera San Cristóbal.
CHALLENGES IN THE FACE OF CLOSURE
For this investigation, what has been explained highlights that in the medium term, mine closure will pose significant challenges for local communities and their institutions, emphasizing that ideally, “those municipalities that have developed local institutional and productive capacities from mining, or parallel to it, will have a greater probability of generating sustainable development processes.”
Under this approach, it ensures that Minera San Cristóbal carries out programs to analyze local resilience and implements actions that seek to diversify economic activities in communities, in order to anticipate that their closure does not mean a violent decrease in the development conditions achieved to date.
However, it notes that, taking into account the importance of mining royalties that would stop being received in the Departmental Government of Potosí and in the Municipality of Colcha K with the end of operations, the problem seems to be more complex.
MINING WASTE AND STATE INVESTMENT
Furthermore, it argues that according to the size and types of mining waste that remain after the closure of a large-scale operation, it is possible to project different exploitation systems, on a smaller scale and on other materials, but capable of maintaining certain local economic activity.
“…the document from CEPAL points out that mining management, under the umbrella of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, translates into a complex articulation of actors and procedures…”
“Precisely Andean mining, from its tradition, offers many experiences of this type. For example, the mineralogical calculations presented on the COMIBOL official website about the deposits exploited by Empresa Minera Huanuni estimate a lifespan of just over 17 years for the mine,” it emphasizes and adds that workers recognize this gradual depletion of the deposit and that, in that sense, they demand the lack of state investment because without it, only accessible reserves could be exploited, which would run out in just over half of the indicated time.
However, it ensures that the city of Huanuni, given its size and population, has a more diversified economy that allows better capacities to face mine closure or finally endure it due to its intense relationship with other exploitation efforts, cooperative and state-owned, capable of capturing unemployed labor in the region.
“However, it is also important to emphasize that there are several precedents regarding the difficulties of applying preventive and control actions from state mining entities,” emphasizes CEPAL’s research.
CONTAMINATION
It states that a precedent in this regard is the construction of the Willa Khollu tailings dam, projected from the emergency established by Supreme Decree 335 of 2009 due to pollution, largely caused by Huanuni’s mining activity, whose “environmental impact in the Huanuni Sub-Basin of the Department of Oruro [generates] negative effects on the health of the local population and a serious impact on water resources and ecosystems, […] mainly in the municipalities of Huanuni, Machacamarca, El Choro, and Poopó.”
It points out that the project only began to be executed in 2016 and to this day, more than 10 years after that emergency declaration, it is not operational. Thus, it states that despite COMIBOL’s intention to implement an environmental strategy, led by its dedicated Directorate, the indications of its effectiveness are few.
It ensures that, as confirmed by a recent study in the area, the “most affected towns in terms of the quality of drinking water are those that obtain water from deep aquifers, not those near mining activities. While the water from Toledo and Challacollo used for irrigation is not suitable, and the rivers of Machacamarca and Sora Sora are also contaminated,” it notes.
“…its formal technical approach reduces the assessment of environmental performance solely based on compliance with legal formalities.”
Similarly, it points out that there are several complaints about how acidic liquids, heavy metals, and other environmental liabilities have historically contaminated the San Miguel River, as well as the Pilcomayo and Desaguadero basins, among others, whose courses traverse the Bolivian highlands.
“It is an impact in rural areas, characterized by the presence of indigenous peoples and agricultural communities that directly suffer the harmful effects of mining,” the document states.
In the context of contamination accumulated over decades and even centuries of mining history, it indicates that conflicts do not necessarily arise from environmental impact as such, but from its impact on the “conditions and quality of life of the population.”
MERCURY REIGNS WITHOUT SHADOWS
For CEPAL, this is also observed in the case of gold mining cooperatives. It states that one of the pollutants that most affects the Amazon region is mercury, used more intensively and with less control in poorly technified operations.
It ensures that especially when these are alluvial, they dispose of waste into rivers that are absorbed by the river biotic mass and then affect riverside populations that consume fish. At the same time, it emphasizes that gold mining produces the slippage of riverbanks affecting cultivated areas or, in the case of dredging riverbeds, generating a direct impact on the river’s fauna and flora.
ONLY TO ALLEVIATE…
The mentioned document argues that, to alleviate this type of impact, some initiatives seek to promote low-scale but responsible mining through international certifications that encourage transparent development and ensure compliance with international agreements for the control of mining pollution (such as the Minamata Convention on mercury).
“Thus, Cumbre del Sajama S.A. (2017) has managed to get three gold mining cooperatives to achieve a similar certification, although its sustainability has not been evident. This difficulty in maintaining acceptable environmental standards is justified both by the pressure of gold-associated markets and its consequences not only on mining cooperatives but also on neighboring communities,” it notes.
It points out that, although they are victims of mining pollution and lack of control over its environmental impacts, the conflicts that arise often mix mitigation demands with those of exploiting the same deposit.
It adds later that many descriptions of cooperative mining expose their ability to move between different veins and renew their exploitation areas. It says that this would justify, in part, a certain lack of commitment to the territories that host them: “once the extraction cycle of a mine in a community is completed, [the cooperatives] will decide to migrate to other places to seek new spaces for the extraction of gold veins.”
Thus, it emphasizes that the idea of the depletion of exploitable resources seems obvious and does not imply greater coordination, let alone planning of impacts, with local communities. It notes that something similar, in terms of informality and little governmental control, has happened regarding the search for new deposits for exploitation.
However, it indicates that the signing of mining contracts is where the State, through the Ministry of Mining and Metallurgy, has tried to influence more clearly, as shown in diagram 2.
It states that, since the new mining regime of 2014, the Jurisdictional Administrative Mining Authority (AJAM) “in addition to having the attribution to grant Administrative Mining Contracts, assumes other specific ones for the control and supervision of the activity,” specifying that the work of this entity should be coordinated with the prospecting and exploration information developed by the Geological and Mining Service (SERGEOMIN).
“This entity, in coordination with the governments, should favor prospective work. However, currently, these tasks manage to materialize in a limited way, given the delay in signing agreements with governments, delays in disbursements, lack of human resources, or procedural bureaucracy [,] which negatively affect budget execution, coordination tasks, and compliance with planned activities,” it emphasizes.
Mining operators, based on information about exploitable grids provided by SERGEOMIN, must develop a Work and Investment Plan to submit to AJAM. This document obliges the mining actor to design the implementation, management, and closure of its activity and implies, among other requirements, the request for an Environmental License from the Ministry of Environment and Water. A criticism of this latter procedure indicates that its technical and formal approach reduces the evaluation of “environmental performance solely based on compliance […] with legal formalities.”
In summary, the CEPAL document indicates that mining management, under the umbrella of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, translates into a complex articulation of actors and procedures that, according to AJAM, can take between one and two years until approval in the Legislative Assembly and concrete signing of the agreement that grants the right of exploitation.
In this same order, it observes that the bureaucratic burdens generated by the State itself seem ineffective in the face of the heterogeneous universe of mining actors that have been shown and their different forms of impact on societies and the environment.
