In the last colloquium of 2023, mining was in the eye of the storm. Participants pointed out that, despite being a highly significant productive activity for the country, it faces water scarcity and operates without proper legal control…
ISSUE 125 | 2023
Vesna Marinkovic U.
Mining, while generating significant revenue for the country through exports, indirect job creation, and having a high elasticity with Gross Domestic Product growth, still faces a scenario of water scarcity. This is because it is an activity that inevitably impacts the environment, contaminating water, soil, and air, stated Ronald Baldivieso, former president of the Bolivian Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (ABIS).
“It generates a large discharge of toxic material (acid mine drainage), fine particles, and polluting gases, degrading the soil and risking the survival of biota that maintains the balance of ecosystems,” Baldivieso emphasized during the colloquium of this news outlet, alongside Rolando Mancilla, president of the Bolivian Engineers Society, Santa Cruz Department.
Baldivieso pointed out that water is used in mining processes such as exploration, exploitation, concentration, and mining leaching. Added to this is the loss through evaporation, infiltration, and increased consumption as the quality of deposits decreases with exploitation. He ensured that some mining chemicals can contaminate water and affect the health and life of individuals.
Among these chemicals, he mentioned cyanide and sulfuric acid that acidify water, causing weakness, bleeding, and death to intoxicated organisms. This is not to mention arsenic, through the consumption of contaminated water and food, and of course, lead and mercury with serious risks to aquatic life and people who consume them.
“There are processes for treating wastewater from mining that yield excellent results, such as treatment using membranes like Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Nanofiltration. However, due to high costs, they are not always used in the mining sector,” Baldivieso indicated.
In this context, he emphasized that “Bolivia has the necessary legal regulations for proper water management in the mining sector, but due to a lack of adequate control, it is not always complied with, with the consequences of environmental damage.”
MAJOR CHALLENGES
The president of SIB-Santa Cruz, Rolando Mancilla, in turn, stated that Bolivia faces major challenges in water management, exacerbated by climate change and activities carried out by its inhabitants.
“The increase in temperature and changes in rainfall patterns in different regions of the country generate increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Likewise, the pollution of water bodies due to mining discharges is considerable, as in the cases of the Suches and Cotagaita basins,” Mancilla added.
“…el 80% de las aguas residuales resultantes de las actividades humanas se vierte en ríos, lagos o mares sin ningún tratamiento…”
He also mentioned that limited water availability in many regions of the country generates social conflicts, as everyone seeks access to this precious resource for basic and productive activities. “It is estimated that in Bolivia, the agricultural sector consumes approximately 80% of the available water, 12% is allocated to domestic/municipal consumption, and 8% to the industrial-mining sector,” he noted, citing data from the National Irrigation Inventory, 2008.
PERSPECTIVES IN SANTA CRUZ
Mancilla, when asked about the situation and prospects for water use and access in the department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, stated that it currently has a demand for almost 70 million cubic meters of water, with a coverage percentage of 95.2%, facing water scarcity due to various factors such as climate change, overexploitation of water resources, and population growth. He emphasized that in 2001, the population was 1.7 million, and by 2023, it reached 4 million, according to the departmental census of the Santa Cruz Government.
He also mentioned human settlements in protected areas, the increase in agricultural activities, and the growth of livestock as activities contributing to a significant demand for water resources.
“Apart from scarcity, we have pollution caused by wastewater, indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides, and discharge of untreated industrial wastewater into water bodies,” he added, stating that to ensure the supply of drinking water in the department, authorities must implement various policies related to water management and preservation.
Mancilla cited policies such as citizen education to reduce excessive consumption and prevent pollution, reducing, conserving, and protecting forested areas recently affected by indiscriminate burning, restoring and reforesting areas affected by burning, and finally, complementing a network system for information and monitoring of groundwater and water wells.
DELICATE GLOBAL SITUATION
Asked about the global water management situation, both participants in the colloquium agreed that it was a “delicate” situation. Baldivieso stated that global water supply and sanitation present a complex situation, and if these trends continue, we face an imminent risk of a global water crisis.
“According to UNESCO and UN statistics, currently more than two billion people suffer from water scarcity, meaning that 26% of the population lacks safe drinking water, and 46% lack access to sanitation. Therefore, currently, 3 out of 10 people lack water supply, and 6 out of 10 do not have safe sanitation,” Baldivieso emphasized.
He also mentioned that 80% of wastewater from human activities is discharged into rivers, lakes, or seas without any treatment. “69% of water extracted from rivers and lakes is used in agricultural activities, and mining consumes approximately between 50,000 and 100,000 cubic meters per day to process approximately 140,000 tons of material per day,” he added.
