Mining Disaster on the Sonora River
Purifying gold in the Mululos Mine of Alamos Gold in the Yaqui River basin / Alamos Gold
Mining in
booming in Mexico and especially along the Sierra Madres in the country’s arid
north. Sonora is leading this boom – accounting for 29% of total production and
with more land covered by federal mining permits than any other state.
But it
wasn’t the boom in mining that first drew state, national, and international
attention to Sonora’s mining industry. Nor was it the massive expansion over
the past decades of the mining and metallurgical operations of Grupo México –
the country’s mining giant – that sparked scrutiny of the company by
congressional committees and environmental organizations.
The mining
boom that is taking hold of eastern Sonora was largely ignored because it took
place in some of the state’s most remote and least traveled regions. It wasn’t
the boom, then that woke up Sonora – and other mining states – to the dangerous
and unregulated mining operations sweeping northern and north-central Mexico.
Rather it
was the dramatic mining bust of August 6, 2014.
That’s when
40,000 cubic meters of orange toxic wastes burst out of the tailings pond of
Grupo México’s immense copper mine near the border town of Cananea. Only after
the tailings pond of the Sonora’s largest mine burst open did Sonorenses and
the Mexican public begin to consider fully the environmental consequences of
virtually unregulated mining in Sonora – and across the nation.
About near
the Arizona-Sonora border, an earthen dam holding back an immense tailings pond
burst open and a flood of toxic copper sulfate acid came rushing down the
Sonora River valley. This wave 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.”[i]
Three months
after the catastrophe, Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo, deputy secretary of the
environmental ministry SEMARNAT, observed that the decontamination of the river
and the valley’s wells could take up to ten years.[ii]
Grupo México asserted that the cleanup operations in the Sonora River Valley
were almost complete. But SEMARNAT’s Lacy Tamayo underscored the extent of the
catastrophe, observing: “The entire ecosystem was affected, and not only the
Río Sonora itself but also the soil, the alluvium, and the dam El
Molonito which was totally impacted by the spill, and now has to returned to
its original state – which is the work that has to be done now.”[iii]
The flood 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.
Contaminated water and chemical residue remain concerns of Sonora RIver Valley residents / PROFEPA
The some 800,000
residents of Hermosillo, the state capital and most populous city, weren’t
directly affected by the environmental disaster-- even though the Sonora River
channel heads directly through the mountain valley into the desert city
Like
Sonora’s other major rivers – Yaqui and Mayo Rivers – the Sonora River hasn’t
been a free-flowing river for more than five decades. Two dams that block the
river flow: El Molinito (completed in 1991) dam 23 kilometers north of Hermosillo
and the older Abelardo Rodríquez dam (completed in 1962), which rises on the
city’s eastern edge.
Designed to
capture water for agribusiness, the two dams and their reservoirs later became
Hermosillo’s last best hope to quench their rising demands of the booming urban
population and the city’s expanding industrial sector, including the Ford
automobile factory.
The dams
prevented the flood of poison from entering the city and from contaminating its
wells and canals. The National Water Commission (Conagua) halted the release of
water from the El Molinito reservoir because of dramatically increased levels
of contamination.
During the
past three years, the Yaquis and other members of the movement to oppose the
Novillo-Hermosillo aqueduct, along with Conagua, had been advocating that
Hermosillo make increased use of the water captured in El Molinito,
particularly in wet years and after major rain events in the valley.
However, For
Hermosillenses, the upshot of the
environmental disaster that struck the Sonora River Valley was to confirm their
conviction that only by tapping the Yaqui River would the city have access to
the quantities of clean water is so desperately needed.
The
environmental disaster served as a belated wake-up call for Hermosillo about
the quality of water flowing down the Sonora River. There was increased
awareness that all water flowing down the river valley from Cananea is likely
to be contaminated to some degree by mine wastes, as numerous studies prior to
the environmental disaster have noted.
Hermosillo’s Dependence on Sonora River
Conagua's Abelardo Rodíguez dam and its usually empty reservoir in Hermosillo / Tom Barry
Grupo
México’s Buenavista mine – the world’s fourth largest copper mine – spreads out
next to the stream that feeds the Bacanuchi River, which is a tributary of the
Sonora River. Whatever toxics seep or overflow into the Bacanuchi Sonora River
and its underlying aquifers and river basin.
The Sonora
River Valley was once the major inhabited area in what is now Sonora. The towns
– most bearing indigenous names such as Arizpe, Banámichi and Aconchi -- that are stand on the gravel terraces
overlooking the river and its floodplain date back to the 1630s when the
Jesuits established missions among the Opata and Pima Bajo communities that
thrived along the Sonora River.
If there
were no Sonora River, there would be no Hermosillo. What now worries Hermosillo
is the city could revert to desert if alternative water sources are not found.
The Sonora
River flows southwest through the Sonora River Valley. Near the river’s
confluence with the smaller San Miguel River, a small group of Pimas settled,
farming the floodplain. The Spanish established a presidio here as part of
their campaign to crush the Seri resistance.
Around this
Spanish fort and indigenous settlement, the town of Pitic gradually formed.
Increasing commerce from the north-south traffic along the wagon road through
the desert and the rising importance of the port city of Guaymas to the south
gave Pitic a new importance as a trading center. In 1828 the Mexicans renamed
the town Hermosillo. But it was until 1879 – shortly before the completion of
the Sonoran Railroad -- that Hermosillo became the new capital of Sonora.
From its
origins, Hermosillo has been dependent on the Sonora River and the water basin
created by the river as turned west through the Costa de Hermosillo before
finally disappearing into the coastal plain. The viability of new commercial
center (based initially on marketing produced from eastern Sonora) and the
agricultural region to the city’s west, north, and south has been integrally
linked to the Sonora River. As the river’s flows diminished because of
over-allocation and rapidly rising urban water consumption, both the city of
Hermosillo and area farmers began recklessly drilling for water in the river
delta.
In the 1950s
the Costa de Hermosillo region became one of Sonora’s leading agricultural
regions. Since the 1980s, however, agribusinesses have abandoned large expanses
of previously irrigated desert as the Sonora River dried up and as salt water
began leaching from the sea into the depleted fresh-water aquifers. Over the
past three decades, pressure has been mounting to find new sources of water to
quench the thirst of the municipality’s residents, agribusiness, and the city’s
new industrial sector.
Initially,
damming the Sonora River provided some assurance that Hermosillo would have a
dependable supply of water. The Abelardo Rodríguez dam and reservoir (completed
in 1962) rose on the city’s eastern edge, and the smaller El Molinito dam and
reservoir started capturing water from major rain events in 1991. However, the
Abelardo Rodríquez reservoir turned into a dusty bowl in 1996-97, precipitating
proposals to transfer water to the city from the Yaqui River. Over the past two
decades, the level of El Molinito reservoir has also dropped dramatically as a
result of drought and over-allocation of water resources in the Sonora River
basin, including by Grupo México’s expanding mining operations.
Summarizing
the plight of Sonora, a study by the Udall Center at the University of Arizona
concluded: Hermosillo, Sonora represents an illustrative case of urban growth
in the context of fixed or declining water resources availability, exacerbated
by climate change, and with important but unresolved challenges of social
vulnerability.”[iv]
[i] “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
[ii] “Afectados por derrame tóxico toman alcaldía en
Sonora,” Proceso, Dec. 2, 2014, at: http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=389671
[iii] Gaspar Navarro
Ruiz, “Siguen revueltas las aguas del Río Sonora,” Terómetro, Dec. 1, 2014, at:
http://www.termometroenlinea.com.mx/vernoticiasN.php?artid=43466&cat=201#.VIe9tGTF8Xd
[iv] Wilder, M., et
al, Moving Forward from Vulnerability to
Adaptation: Climate Change, Drought, and Water Demand in the Urbanizing
Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico, Udall Center for Studies in
Public Policy, 2012
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