Mining In Argentina

Mining in Argentina

INTRODUCTION

Today, the environmental impact generated by Mega Mining is a matter of debate in various social spheres. Over the years, irresponsibility and lack of awareness on the part of economic organizations that are responsible for managing this sector, have impacted the environment negatively.

Among the main impacts are the deterioration of the earth’s crust, water pollution, the grievance of the flora and fauna of the environment close to mining exploitation, not to mention the harmful effects on human health of populations near the nearbyalthough sometimes these effects can be extended over time and regions.

Open pit mining is an industry generating innumerable environmental, visual, human and cultural impacts, founded on the exploitation of non -renewable resources found under the earth’s crust, its degree of impact will depend directly on the mineral that is intended to extract.

There are several techniques to practice this activity, one of them is the application of chemicals for the leaching of the land through the use of cyanide, mercury and sulfuric acid, these substances are highly toxic and are responsible for dissolving unwanted compounds, with the aim ofObtaining the minerals that are desired to extract from the Earth, is executed in extensive areas of land, craters of large diameters are created and they are deepened as the process is advanced.

DEVELOPING

Open Mining in Argentina.

It is called the open pit mining to the mining exploitation process that is not carried out in underground galleries, but on the surface of the earth.

For this, a large amount of land with machinery and explosives are removed, creating immense craters that on average measure 100 hectares and reach 200 meters to 800 meters deep, approximately, approximately. Often spiral ramps are built to facilitate the transport of trucks with the mineral from the bottom of the deposit. The craters are enlarged until the company stops exploiting the deposit for reducing its profitability.

In Argentina, mining exploitation began in the nineties, by foreign companies that obtained the concession of the sector. It is currently expanding and moves a significant volume of money, from which the State receives only 3% of income.

The Mining Investment Law, the Mining Code, the Federal Mining Agreement and the Environmental Protection Law were created to guarantee the investments of numerous multinationals, which was received with open arms even when they had been accused of polluting in their countriesoriginally. In 1993 the amount of mining exploration field per person was increased to 100.000 hectares and a year later the mining companies were released to pay taxes for imports.

In the Reporting Contamination and Mining published on January 29, 2012, the Argentine writer and economist Antonio Elio Brailovsky mentions: "Great mining does not make an integral management of its hazardous waste: it simply accumulates them". This is how taxpayers end up paying for a long time the cleaning of mining waste, when often foreign corporations are not obliged to cover expenses.

From the dissemination of this information and the manifestations of the social movements that resist and reject the installation of large -scale mining projects in Argentina, seven provinces have laws that limit or prohibit the activity. The laws in force in Chubut, Córdoba and Mendoza, have failures that ratify their constitutionality by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, in the first case, and by the highest courts of their provinces for the other two.

In May 2009, Deputy Rodolfo Canini presented a project against open pit mining in Zapala. As a result, a march was made in support of the mining activity, in which there was a broad participation of the mining sector and the education sector belonging to this activity. According to defenders in Zapala there are approximately 244 thousand families living directly or indirectly of mining, being the only industrial activity that has an environmental protection legislation.

In 2008, in Córdoba, the Argentine Mining Association AOMA organized a similar demonstration after the prohibition of open -pit mining. This time the argument of was the economic benefit granted by mining, and the many jobs that are lost when companies are forced to withdraw.

However, it should be clarified that projects that prohibit this type of mining, actually prohibit the use of poisonous materials during their process.

Mining Entrepreneurships s.A. A Chinese company developed a copper exploitation project in Mahuida Campana, a territory where the Mapuche Mellao-Morales community lives. Knowing this, both said community and the Popular Assembly of Zapala entered alert, considering that the company puts at risk the health of the population for economic interests. On May 21, 2009 thousands of people marched around the city of Neuquén in protest against mining exploitation. Among the protesters were environmental organizations, political groups and guilds. According to Rodolfo Canini, there are only three mining police in Neuquén, so environmental controls cannot be carried out as they should.

In the province of Jujuy, two days later, there was a similar case: Neighborhood Groups demonstrated in Tilcara against open -pit mining in the Humahuaca gorge and presented a petition for their prohibition to Governor Walter Barrionuevo.

The industrial processes on which the so mentioned "progress" is based on a large amount of minerals to meet the demands of products whose need was generated in the consumer by the companies that produce them and sell them. So true is that, as the very high levels of consumption of a small percentage of humanity are destroying the forms of livelihood and the environment of the other party, which is generally the one that lives in the areas impacted by mining.

Due to its impacts, mining is one of the most polluting activities carried out by man. So it must be strictly controlled in all its stages, from prospecting and exploitation to transport and processing. In many cases, strict control would simply mean prohibition of mining activity in the area.

However, during the last decade there were hundreds of serious accidents where the protagonist was cyanide. This is mainly because so far in many cases this control has been left to the hands of the mining corporations themselves, something absolutely absurd.

Even control in the hands of governments is insufficient, taking into account the economic and political power that mining corporations have shown to have about them. You must then resort to society as a whole to participate directly in this control, as the only way to match forces.

From a legal point of view, companies that exploit natural resources should not be foreigners or failing that they should be mostly formed by national capitals, so to carry out this activity, they should be affected to pay taxes, in addition to carrying out the extraction of mineralsThey should respect the environment avoiding all kinds of contamination or damage to the same.

On the other hand, from the moral point of view, mining companies should not use corruption acts to carry out this activity when they do not comply with the standards established by law, this shows when they do nothing to repair the environment that isHe has seen damage in the extraction of minerals, as is the case of the Varadero mine in the province of San Juan that poured water with cyanide to the San Juan rivers. 

Open Heaven Extraction and cyanide leaching

With superficial exploitation, the activity destroys ecosystems over kilometers, in addition, to separate the valuable minerals from the rest, poisonous chemicals are used that are spread through the environment, causing all kinds of poisonings (by heavy, arsenic or cyanide metals) anddiseases.

There is also the danger of gases that are released during mining processes and the well -known ‘acid drainage’ (water acidification). Below are two highly polluting and harmful mineral extraction processes against the environment and people.

• In uranium extraction, a process called sulfuric acid leaching (500 liters of water per second) is used when this in contact with mercury veins is released, radon gas and other radioactive derivatives are released.
• In gold extraction, the cyanide leaching process is used, which produces long and short term environmental damage, among other reasons for cyanide waste that is filtered and can end up contaminating underground rivers (sometimes they have even poisoned nearby tributaries).

Open Heaven megaminerry allows metal recovery such as gold and silver of extremely poor and low quality deposits. The leaching of clusters is characterized by low costs and the ability to process large amounts of material through huge machinery, tons of chemicals and millions of liters of water.

To detach the gold of the stone, potassium cyanide is used, an extremely toxic substance. Exposure to this chemist considerably affects human health. High dose contact mainly damages the brain and heart because it prevents cells from receiving oxygen, causing respiratory coma and insufficiency that leads to death.

The dust caused by the disintegration of the rocks composed of oxidable minerals or heavy metals is dispersed by the explosions. The material particles are dragged by the wind during transport processes or through underground river networks causing the destruction and alteration of vegetation in the area, as well as the cultivation surfaces.The particles dragged by the wind or the suspension dust contaminate the waters on the surface, while the waste and ashes deteriorate the quality of the deep water.

The reduction of the water level in the environment of the mine in a controlled way implies the desiccation of wells in the surroundings and the sinking of the terrain, the surrounding soils usually are eroded, sterile and dried.

Wild animals frequently die when they come into contact with cyanide ponds, after the destruction of their habitat they fail to subsist and are displaced. There is also death of the fish that inhabit rivers and lakes for the effects that this substance has on its gills.

The presence of an open pit mine can destroy areas of tourism potential, cultural goods, religious and historical sites of the surrounding communities. In some populations, confrontation between people who want a source of employment arises, even if it is temporary and risky, and those who mostly consider the effects on their health due to respiratory diseases and the nervous system, as well as damage to their homes and theenvironment. In addition, spills and filtration with wastewater occasionally reach streams and wells that house water for consumption of communities, domestic and wild animals.

Recovery measures take a long time, are very expensive and their success is not guaranteed. While excavations performed can become urban landfills or toxic waste deposits where latent fires without call contaminating the environment with bad odors and toxic gases for years.

Often itinerant foreign companies move to developing countries in search of deposits for exploitation where there is a flexible regulation and a minimum control. The miners who carry their production abroad and export their profits, have the possibility of leaving the place where they settled without receiving state controls, leaving behind them devastation and pollution without compensating the damage that their actions have caused. While the benefit for the population is minimal and temporary and where damages and destruction are durable.

CONCLUSION

Throughout the last two decades mining in Argentina went through a growing process, reaching levels of territorial expansion, production and exports. This growth, we can say, what has been paid by society with the deterioration of the environment, of our most valuable natural resources, and with the lives of thousands of animals and plant species that disappeared due to the destruction of the soil.

If the laws complyimpunity with which they operate, is that these companies poorly regulated by the law are not responsible for the damage they cause.

These conditions caused by the intervention of multinational companies affect the values already in force in our society.

Faced with this situation, it should be borne in mind that Argentina is not a country of mining tradition in terms of large -scale mining economy, but a country rich in its diversity of common goods, which must be protected and defended in favor of social welfareand of the future generation.