Chapter I: The mine
Going to the Cerro Blanco mine in Guatemala is now a game of chance. The road that leads to the hill ends in front of the Ostúa River where the bridge that connects the nearby communities collapsed in the last big rain. Crossing it by vehicle is possible if the tributary is not in a hurry.
On the other side of the river there is little to see: paddocks with little vegetation and some old houses. But what a part of the Asunción Mita community observes with caution is the hill where the mine has been installed since 2007 and whose drainage connects with the waters of the Ostúa River in Guatemala.
The mine is located 5 kilometers from the town of Asunción Mita in Guatemala and 15 kilometers from the border with El Salvador.
For 24 years, the intention to extract precious metals from the hill has not been without success. The first company to try it was Glamis Gold in 1998. It then sold the project to GoldCorp Incorporation which, parallel to the purchase, obtained in 2007 the underground exploitation permits for the mine, granted by the Ministries of Environment and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Energy and Guatemalan mines.
What GoldCorp did not expect is that the 1,200-meter-long tunnel it built for the extraction of gold and silver would be flooded after the seepage of the thermal waters of the hill, which have a temperature of more than 60 degrees Celsius. That stopped the operation until then.
Already in 2017, Bluestone Resources, the parent company of Elevar Resources, took over the project without seeking to make the same mistake: since November of last year the company has been in the process with the Guatemalan government to obtain a new exploitation permit. This time the extraction of metals will not be done “underground” but “open sky”. Something that the villagers already resent.
Chapter II: the partial destruction of Cerro Blanco
If the Guatemalan government approved the exploitation of the “open pit” mine, the company would use explosives to break 1,200 meters long, 600 meters wide and 320 meters deep from the hill. The same space that the company has approved for underground extraction.
“The gold in the mountain is like a cone,” he told the voice of america Santiago Correa, environmental manager of the company Elevar Resources.
Correa does not know what percentage of the hill would disappear after the explosion, but when showing a model he ventures to say that the explosion would cover 25% of the hill. The only difference that he sees between both forms of extraction is due to “the perception of the landscape”. In the underground way the process is not seen.
But the Salvadoran biologist and researcher of the Association of Women Environmentalists of El Salvador (AMAES), Cidia Cortés, does not share the idea that the only difference is only aesthetic. She speaks of radon gas as one of the main problems with open pit mining.
“The radon gas is the first to go out into the atmosphere with this extraction method,” he explains to the VOA.
The World Health Organization (WHO) points out that radon gas is one of the main causes of lung cancer. And although it emanates from the soil and rocks, when it enters the open air it quickly dissolves.
Cortés also alludes to possible damage to the earth’s surface, impact on the flora and fauna of the hill, and contamination of surface waters.
If a part of the hill were exploited, the shape it would adopt in one half would be that of a huge hole degraded into steps and the other half would remain unexploited.
With the remains, the mining company plans to assemble a solid structure similar to a building.
Chapter III: Cyanide and arsenic: the threat to the Ostúa and Lempa rivers
It is October 20. The waters of the Ostúa River look cloudy and shallow. There are no fishermen.
This is the first tributary into which the Cerro Blanco mine plans to discharge the excess liquids from open-pit mining through a stream.
The Ostúa River rises in Guatemala and flows into Lake Güija, the largest flow of which belongs to El Salvador.
Lake Güija has already given El Salvador somber images: fish gasping to the surface in search of oxygen and others floating lifeless.
The Ministry of the Environment of El Salvador revealed in a study published in 2021 that Lake Güija has “values outside the norm” for the metals cyanide, arsenic, lead, mercury and others, and that it is the Ostúa River that transports them in its waters to the lake.
The source of the metals was not included in the report. The mine denies responsibility.
The main concern of the residents is that the Ostúa River increases the heavy metals in its waters, and that when it reaches Lake Güija, which flows into the Lempa River, one of the longest rivers in Central America and the father river of El Salvador more people are affected. 1.5 million Salvadorans drink water from this river and around 3.8 million people live in its basin, which crosses three countries.
Both cyanide and arsenic have already exceeded the limit value in the Ostúa River. The maximum for cyanide is 0.005 mg/L and the Ostúa River registered 0.006 mg/L in 2021. Arsenic has also exceeded the limit of 0.005 mg/L, passing to 0.088 mg/L. The data was published by El Salvador in 2021.
Arsenic is a natural chemical found in waters under volcanic sediments. The biologist Cidia Cortés explains that the exploitation of the hill will remove excess soil and therefore the arsenic will increase even more.
The greatest threat of drinking water contaminated with the chemical is that, according to the WHO, cancer and skin lesions can develop. Also developmental problems, cardiovascular diseases, neurotoxicity and diabetes.
Elevar Resources talks about using a chemical for the exploitation of the mine: sodium cyanide. This will be used to separate the gold from the rock.
“Once the sodium cyanide is used, it will enter the plant and will be treated in the same plant. It will not be released into the environment,” explains Correa. The mining company promises to discharge the excess water from the mining process free of sodium cyanide and arsenic.
But ecologist Julio González, from the Madre Selva Collective, believes in the concept that matter cannot be created or destroyed, it only transforms. “In the case of sodium cyanide, the compound could disintegrate, but the matter remains. Whether it’s in the tailings dams or in the filtered tailings,” he points out to the VOA.
The mining tailings is a solid that remains after separating the gold from the rocks. A kind of sand. Elevar Resources plans to form a structure to compact that sand. The danger that environmentalists see is that the structure collapses and falls into the ravine that leads to the Ostúa River.
Chapter IV: The settlers
Elda Ramírez takes a poster and places it on the mesh gate of her house. “They are going to kill us”, she reads to herself. Elda doesn’t care that her son-in-law, who lives next door to her, is in favor of the mine. She talks about the risks of the mining project while her relative increases the volume of the music she listens to.
“The water has dried up. The fruit sticks are dried. That’s why we don’t want that project”, he tells the Voice of America.
Trapiche Vargas (up the hill) and La Lima (down the hill) are the closest rural hamlets to Cerro Blanco. Elda lives in La Lima with María Teresa Orellana. Next to her house there is a paddock.
Sources of income in the area are limited. Some live from livestock or agriculture and others from various sales. Although María Teresa is not in favor of the mine, she speaks of the damage in the future tense. “There will be a lot of dryness. They are going to occupy deadly health products such as cyanide, ”she says.
María Teresa is not closed to what the mine has to say when its employees visit them house to house, but she concludes: “According to them it is going to be a safe project, but there is never a safe project in reality”.
In a municipal consultation on September 18, 7,481 people representing 27.9% of the Asunción Mita census said “No” to the reactivation of the mine; 904 said “Yes”. María del Carmen Cifuentes and Armando Teo were a key player in that consultation and both spoke with the voice of america about the case.
Cifuentes has lived most of his life in the town of Asunción Mita. She assures that if the company starts operations she would have to look for another place to live: “It would be an ecological catastrophe.” Teo accompanies him in her posture.
But the opinions are not only against the mine. In the hamlet down the hill there are two residents who agreed to speak with the VOA under anonymity. They say a lot about Mita as a town: that work is necessary so that young people don’t migrate and that wealth is low.
“They don’t want the youth to go to the United States, but if they don’t have jobs here, they’re going to do it. The only possibility I see for the youth to professionalize is with the mine”, said one of them.
Chapter V: diplomacy
The Guatemalan government has in its hands the decision of whether or not the mining company operates in the Central American country. El Salvador has prohibited mining exploitation since 2017.
After the municipal consultation that by majority said “No” to the project, the Guatemalan government immediately said that the results are invalid because the consultation should have been carried out by the central government and not the municipal government.
They also stated in a statement that the consultation had been suspended by an amparo court. “In that sense, the celebration of the same was done in contravention of a court order.”
El Salvador has requested a binational table for the case. But no public progress.
The date on which the Guatemalan government will decide on the future of the project is not yet known. Meanwhile, the mine is kept fenced and under permanent surveillance. The residents remain vigilant.
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