Connecting the Rivers
Mulatos Gold Mine on slopes of Sierra Madre Occidental and source of Yaqui River basin contamination / El Imparcial
For the most
part, the focus in the aftermath of Cananea environmental disaster was on the
impact on the residents and agricultural economy of the upper and mid Sonora
River basin. Wells for drinking water
and for irrigation were contaminated, and the some 25,000 residents of the
valley were left without drinking water while farmers and ranchers had no well
water or river water to irrigate their crops or water their cattle.
But the
repercussions of the mining industry’s “worst natural disaster” quickly
extended far beyond the contamination of upper and mid Sonora River basin. With
a day or two, both sides of the Yaqui water war were reconfiguring their
arguments for and against the Novillo-Hermosillo aqueduct that transfers as much
as 75 Mm3 of water from the Yaqui River to Hermosillo. For its part,
Sonora’s mining sector rejected the assertion that the tailings pond break was
a major environmental disaster.[2]
When the
newly elected governor Guillermo Padrés Elías announced in early 2010 that the
state government was building an aqueduct from the Yaqui River he ignited a
water war. The social and economic sectors of Hermosillo were thrilled, but the
leading voices of the urban and farm sectors in the Yaqui River Valley
vehemently objected, as did the a large and militant sector of Yaquis. [3]
The Yaqui
Water War cannot be fully understand without probing the history of Sonora’s
hydraulic society, the failure to recognize the water rights of the Yaquis, and
the population and agricultural boom in desert regions of Sonora, and the power
politics of water distributions. But also important are the natural factors
that contribute to rising tensions.
Most
important is geographical context for Sonora’s hydrology. Neither surface war
nor groundwater is distributed equally in Sonora. Climate change – manifest in
more prolonged and more intense droughts and in higher average temperatures –
compounds the tensions building around the distribution of Sonora’s
increasingly scarce surface water.
All surface
water in Sonora flows from the mountains to the desert. The Sonora River and
the Yaqui River share this identity, but the water basin of the former is
severely over-exploited while the Yaqui River basin is relatively healthier.
Being closer to the Sierra Madre Occidental and fed by more tributaries over a
much longer distance, the Yaqui River channels ten times the surface water as
the Sonora River. The Mayo River, Sonora’s second largest river, is also much
larger than the Sonora River.
Annual Average Flows of Sonora’s
Largest Rivers [4]
Yaqui River 2,404 Mm3
Mayo River 863 Mm3
Sonora River
204 Mm 3
Social and
political tensions escalated in 2011 when the anti-aqueduct Yaquis began
mounting intermittent blockades of Highway #15, a four-land toll road that
takes truckers and cars from the border town of Nogales to Mazatlán, and then
southeast to Mexico City. The aqueduct reached Hermosillo in mid-2013, although
construction on the planned final section called the Ramal Norte that will deliver
Yaqui River water to the northern edge of Hermosillo had not begun as of
October 2014.
The
anti-aqueduct protests that began in May 2010 have continued despite the
completion of the aqueduct’s main segment that brought Yaqui River water to
southeast Hermosillo. Tensions rose to a new level in mid-2014 after the arrest
by the state police of two leaders of the Yaquis’ anti-aqueduct campaign –
actions by the state’s justice department that were widely condemned as
retribution by the state government and another attempt to crush the
anti-aqueduct movement among the Yaquis.
The August
2014 mining disaster had the result of hardening the positions of the two
sides. In Hermosillo, the break in the tailings pond was alarming for many
reasons. At first it was mostly a concern about how close to the city the toxic
war had come.
Soon media
attention and political disputes brought the public’s attention to fact that
copper mining in Cananea had been contaminating the river basin for many
decades – with a history of water sampling by university researchers to prove
it. Also, officials of the affected towns and leaders of the mineworkers in
Cananea told the media that they had complained to company, state, and federal
officials about other spills and about the lack of environmental safeguards at
the mine.
In a study
of the hydrological resources of Sonora, researchers from the Sonora
Technological Institute and the State Water Commission observed: “In the Sonora
River basin, for numerous years there have been problems of contamination of
heavy metals, the same problem that exists in the flows of Río Bacanuchi,
coming from mineral exploitation and the technology used to extract copper, as
well the inadequate management of industrial wastes that the mine generates.”[5]
In 2005 the
State Water Commission issued a comprehensive report on water resources in
Sonora that concluded that for many years there has existed the problem of
contamination of heavy metals issuing from mining exploration and the
inadequate management of the industrial wastes that are produced as a
byproduct.”[6]
In the end,
though, while confidence in the governor and in state and federal water
agencies plummeted, support for the Novillo-Hermosillo aqueduct deepened. The
mining disaster highlighted precariousness of Hermosillo’s sources of water –
not only the increasing scarcity but also the worsening quality.
At the same
time, complaints by communities of the Yaqui River basin that the boom in
mining operations was contaminating the river and its tributaries.
In addition
to concerns about Grupo México’s reckless environmental practices at its
Caridad operations, there were rising concerns about the huge open-pit gold
mine of Los Alamos Gold in the middle Yaqui River basin. Los Alamos Gold has a
mining concession that extends over more than 30,000 hectares near the
community of Los Mulatos and along the Aros-Mulatos tributaries of the Yaqui
River.
Mulatos Gold Mine in drainage of Mulatos/Aros River (Yaqui River tributaries) / Alamos Gold
The Canadian
company bought the concession for $10 million in 2003, and by 2012 had produced
one million ounces of gold and more than $1 billion in revenue from its Los
Mulatos Mine.[7]
Los Alamos Gold boasts that its Los Mulatos gold mine, operated by its Mexican
subsidiary Mina del Oro Nacional, is one of the “lowest cost gold-producing
mines in the world and consistent and significant cash-flow generators.”[8]
But the mine is also one of the major sources of mining contamination in
Mexico. For more than a decade the community of Los Mulatos has been
complaining about the careless mining practices of Los Alamos Gold that are
polluting the arroyos and the river.[9] In
August 2013 a truck carrying 16,000 liters of cyanide (used to purify gold)
overturned on the way to the mine, contaminating the river, poisoning fish and
birds, and causing the evacuation of several communities.[10]
It wasn’t,
however, until after the Grupo México’s massive contamination of the Sonora
River that state and federal government agencies began paying attention to the
charges that the mine was contaminating water flowing down from the Sierra
Madre Occidental. Then in November 2014 the National Commission for Human
Rights (CNDH) condemned the contamination and asked that the government
consider suspend its permit until the mine abides by national environmental
regulations.
In the wake of
the mining catastrophe, Governor Padrés washed his hands of any responsibility
for monitoring the environmental safeguards at Buenavista, pointing the finger
of blame instead at the federal environmental agencies. The governor correctly
asserted that the federal government is primarily responsible for environmental
protection, for regulating the mining industry, and monitoring the quality and
quantity of the country’s water resources.
What the
governor failed to mention was that the Sonoran state government maintains
close relations with the mining sector. Nor has the Padrés administration
acknowledge that it had received numerous complaints from local officials about
Grupo México’s waste-management program and about the resulting contamination
of the river. The state government has not taken upon itself any role in
protecting the state from the adverse social and environmental impacts of
mining, even while knowing well that the federal government’s regulatory and
monitoring operations were far from sufficient.
While laying
the blame for the catastrophe on the federal government – mainly the
environmental agencies SEMARNAT and PROFEPA – Governor Padrés still has failed
to acknowledge the state government’s close relations with the mining industry
in the state – not in any regulatory role but rather as promoters, creditors,
planners, financiers, and sources of technical and logistical support, while
also providing training and subsidies for the mining sector. The state
government actively promotes the mining industry through the mining
coordination office of the Secretaría de Economía and the government-sponsored
public trust established to financially support the mining sector.[11]
Conagua’s Central Role
Without
ensuring that the Novillo-Hermosillo aqueduct counted on all the proper state
and federal permits and impact studies, Conagua financed and supported (at
least until 2013) the aqueduct’s construction and operation. Without
guaranteeing that the aqueduct would not adversely affect the water rights of the
Yaquis (or even consulting the Yaquis), Conagua gave the go ahead to controversial
inter-basin water transfer.
What is
more, Conagua provided critical backing to the fictitious backstory created by
Sonora SI and the State Water Commission (CEA) in the face of widening
opposition. Conagua echoed the state government’s claims that most of the
aqueduct water came either from purportedly unappropriated Yaqui river water or
from the purchase of water rights from small landholders and ejidatarios in the middle basin.
Sonora’s
water crisis –including the salinization of coastal plains, depleted aquifers,
loss of indigenous water rights, uncontrolled water use and contamination by
mining sector, towns and cities without sufficient water, and the unsustainable
hydraulic infrastructure programmed by Sonora SI – are ultimately attributable
to Conagua’s lack of due diligence.
It is true,
as Conagua officials assert, that the federal government amended the national
water law to the control and monitoring of water use, giving state and local
authorities more participation and responsibility. Yet Conagua is not some
distant bureaucracy in Mexico City. Not only does Conagua has officesin
Hermosillo, the federal agency also has a special division that covers the entire
state of Sonora called the Organismo de Cuenca Noroeste (Northwest Basin
Agency).
In theory,
the Organismo de Cuenca Noroeste protects the sustainability of water resources
in each of the state’s major water basins. Indeed, Conagua’s Sonora branch consists
of separate planning offices for Sonoyta, Concepción, Sonora, Yaqui, Mátape,
and Mayo basins. All water drilling and water-diversion permits, as well as all
major hydraulic projects, come under the jurisdiction of the Hermosillo-based
Organismo de Cuenca Noroeste.
It is not,
then, the state government – whether controlled by PRI, PRD, PAN, or the
Partido Verde – that bears ultimate responsibility for the sustainability of
Sonora’s hydraulic society. Rather it is the federal government through Conagua–
and not only because it authorizes water megaprojects and even individual wells
but also because it and the federal government’s central budget provides almost
all of the funding for state’s water megaprojects.
Transboundary Implications
Historically,
the adverse environmental impacts to borderland water, land, and air from
copper mining and smelting have affected the Mexican side of the border more
than the U.S. side – where most of the mining and smelting occurred. Yet as
mining operations dramatically expand in the northern borderland states – from
Coahuila to Baja California – the environmental consequences to the borderland
environment have been given relatively little binational consideration.
In September
2014, two separate spills – one by truck and another by train -- of toxic
chemicals from Grupo México operations in Sonora raised concerns about the
possible contamination of the San Pedro and Santa Cruz rivers, both of which
flow north into Arizona.[12]
Water
consumption (and contamination) of mining company and the company town of
Cananea have also long adversely affected the quantity and quality of the San
Pedro River, which flows north into Arizona.
In his 2008
Colegio de Sonora thesis, Florentino Garza Salazar painted a grim picture of
environmental devastation and unsustainable water usage by the Cananea copper
operations, noting that at the junction of the Sonora River headwater and the
San Pedro River more than 3,000 hectares have been denuded by the mine with no
attempts to reforest the barren riparian area.[13]
Moreover,
the mine’s water use threatens the sustainability and recharge rates of the San
Pedro river basin – a transborder river basin that in Mexico is usually just a
dry gravel river bed.
[2] “Calificar de peor desastre, es exagerado: Sector
Minero,” El Imparcial, Dec. 6, 2014,
http://www.elimparcial.com/EdicionEnLinea/Notas/Sonora/01122014/915615-Calificar-de-peor-desastre-es-exagerado-Sector-minero.htmlat:
[3] For the chronology of the anti- and pro-aqueduct
movements see: José Luis Moreno, “Conflicto por el agua entre la agricultura y
la ciudad: el caso del acueducto presa El Novillo-Hermosillo,” En Memoria
del 2do Congreso de la Red de Investigadores Sociales sobre Agua, coordinado
por Alicia Torres Rodríguez y Mendoza Bohne, Sofía, 0. Chapala: Universidad de
Guadalajara, 2012
[4] Figures from
INEGI (200), at: http://www.geologia.unam.mx/igl/publs/boletin/bol118/Bol118_09gal.pdf
[5] Rodrigo González-Enríquez and Leticia Guadalupe
Castillo-Acosta, “Los recursos hidraúlicos de Sonora: Un análisis de su calidad
y contaminación,” Instituto Tecnológico de Sonora, Ciudad Obregón. n.d.
[6] Comisión Estatal del Agua, “Análisis sobre el uso y
manejo de los recursos hidráulicos en el estado fronterizo de Sonora,” October
2005, p. 35.
[7] For the company’s own technical report on the Los
Mulatos mine see: http://www.alamosgold.com/files/doc_downloads/Mulatos%20-%20Technical%20Report%20(2012).pdf
[8] Los Alamos
Gold, at:
http://www.alamosgold.com/mines-and-projects/producing-mine/mulatos-mine-mexico/default.aspx#overview
[9] For a good overview of the contamination of Los
Mulatos gold mine and its impact on the community, see: “La mina Mulatos
envenena la region,” No a la Mina, April 24, 2014, at:
http://www.noalamina.org/latinoamerica/mexico/item/12576-mina-mulatos-envenena-la-region
[11] See Tom Barry, “Mining Industry Boosterism in
Sonora,” Oct. 29, 2014, at:
http://borderlinesblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/sonora-chronicles-mining-boosterism-in_29.htm
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