Tom Barry
Statue in Cananea, Sonora, 30 kilometers from Arizona
border/ Tom Barry
Mining is booming in
Mexico, especially in the northern states and border regions. Sonora and
Chihuahua lead the nation in the number of new mining permits.
Only when there is
an environmental disaster or when dozens of workers lose their lives because of
unsafe conditions is there much public attention to the adverse consequences to
the mining boom that has been spreading across Mexico since the mid-1990s. The
virtually unregulated use of river and groundwater by the mining corporations
is depleting transboundary river basins, while governments on both sides of the
border bow to the power of the mining industry.
Area formerly farmed on edge of Laguna de Guzmán south
of Palomas. / Tom Barry
Bismark Mine to South of NM Border
Over the past ten
years, the water extraction operations of the giant subterranean zinc mine
Bismark – which lies south of the Columbus, NM/ Palomas, Chihuahua border towns
and not far from the inside corner of New Mexico’s boot heel – has dramatically
lowered the water table.
The National Water
Commission (Conagua) hasn’t released information about the quantity of water
used by Bismark, which is owned by Industrías Peñoles (one of Mexico’s three
largest mining corporations). It may be that Conagua doesn’t even know how much
water the company uses given its lax control over mining companies.
Ten years after
Bismark started operations on the eastern side of the border municipio of Ascensión, area farmers
mounted a series of sit-ins and protests against Bismark and Conagua in 2004. According
to Armando Villareal Martha, one of the leading voices of small farmers and
ranchers in Chihuahua, the water level of least 400 of the 600 wells in the
region around the mine dropped 15-20 meters since Bismark began operations.
Dozens of these wells had been abandoned.[i]
One doesn’t need to
visit the wells of area ranchers and farmers to see the impact of the mine’s
water pumping. A 3-ft. pipe runs out of
the mine gushing water day and night seven days a week. At the time of the
protests, Villareal Martha asserted that the mine discharged 2,500 to 3,000
liters of water every second – a figure that neither the mine nor Conagua has
disputed. (In 2008 the Villareal Martha was assassinated, and his supporters
accused the government of Chihuahua.[ii])
Before the Bismark mine
began operations, the Laguna de Guzmán was a recreational site but the lake has
completely dried up – no longer benefiting from the artesian springs and the
Casas Grandes River no longer reaches the laguna.
Industrías Peñoles
also operates a copper mine in the Cananea area of Sonora, which stands on the
western side of the Sierra Madre Occidental from its huge mine in Ascensión,
Chihuahua.
Entrance to Bismark zinc mine, which is
depleting border aquifers. / Tom Barry
Copper Mine Disaster to South of Arizona
Border
When the Sonora
River disaster struck this summer, there was little public information about
social and environmental impacts of the Cananea and other mining operations.
The flood of toxics washing down the Sonora River also led to questions by the
media, the pubic, and the anti-Independencia aqueduct forces about how much
water Grupo México’s Buenavista copper mine and other mining operations
consumed.
About 30 miles south of the Arizona-Sonora border, an
earthen dam holding back an immense tailings pond burst open. More than 40,000
cubic meters of toxic copper sulfate acid came rushing down the Sonora River
valley. This flood of toxics from Grupo México’s huge copper mine in Cananea
washed down one of the most beautiful river valleys in Mexico. Mexico’s
environmental secretary called it the “worst natural disaster provoked by the
mining industry in the modern history of Mexico.”[iii]
Grupo México train car carrying sulfuric acid. / Tom Barry
The wave of toxics – including copper, arsenic, aluminum,
cadmium, chromium, manganese and lead -- poisoned more than three-hundred water
wells throughout the river valley, leaving more than a dozen of small riverside
towns without any water – no water to drink, to bathe with, to irrigate crops,
or to give their cattle.
Other spills of
highly toxic chemicals by Grupo México in the couple of weeks that followed the
August 6 catastrophe set off alarms on both sides of the border about the
possible contamination of the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers – both of which
north into the U.S. borderlands.
[i]
“Protestan campesinos por sobrexplotación de agua,” El Universal, July13, 2004, at: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/53979.html
[ii]
“El gobierno ordernó matar el lidér agraio, aseguran en Chihuaha,” La Jornada, March 17, 2008, at http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2008/03/17/index.php?section=estados&article=035n1est
[iii]
“Cananea in Sonora: one of the largest open-pit mines in the world,”
Geo-Mexico, Oct.2, 2014, at: http://geo-mexico.com/?p=11932
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