Esta entrada también está disponible en:
Police violence, arrests and public protest nationwide to defend Argentina’s glacier law reigned as Argentine President Milei’s libertarian party aligned with the mining lobby and muscled through a Congressional reform of the glacier law to give companies including Glencore, McEwen and Rio Tinto a green light to advance their stalled mining projects into the ice. The vote held in the late hours of the morning were 137 for, 111 against and 3 abstentions.
The mining companies’ quest to plow through glaciers to get a minerals still has a long road ahead, as environmental groups and over a hundred thousand people across Argentina that signed up for a recent congressional hearing about the proposed reform but were expressly left outside of the congressional debate, have vowed to take the Glacier Law modification to court. The Justice system has already ruled against mining giants like Barrick Gold and other companies including Xstrata (the previous owner of El Pachon, now run by Glencore) with a Supreme Court decision affirming that Argentina’s Glacier Law trumps mining operations (which are prohibited in glacier and periglacial areas).
At the heart of the debate is a question that goes beyond glacier ice which no one seems to argue, even the pro-mining lobby, are critical water reservoirs for much of Argentina’s population. The key issue is more enigmatic perennial ice that survives and hides beneath the surface of high mountain terrain, the so called “periglacial environment”, commonly referred to as “permafrost”, which like glaciers, captures and buries winter snow and rain as subsurface ice, releasing meltwater slowly into the water basin as the months stretch into warmer summer and fall. Periglacial areas, typical of high mountain regions around the globe, but especially important in countries of the Central Andes, like Argentina and Chile, are fundamental hydrological resources.
Mining companies have a sketchy and frankly bad history with glaciers and periglacial environments. Barrick Gold, XStrata, Glencore, Rio Tinto, McEwen Mining, and numerous others, that have explored the Central Andes for decades, with some already advancing active mining projects, have plowed bulldozers through glacier ice and/or disturbed periglacial zones forging exploratory roads to find copper, gold and silver, drilling through or disturbing stable ice reservoirs to gauge mineral presence. Some mining projects like El Pachon, have to destroy entire glaciers to get at minerals, because they are, by the mining company’s own admittance, in the pit areas. That’s why they need the glacier and periglacial protection law to disappear.
These are the principal sources of Argentina’s water supply say, environmental groups, farmers and much of the Argentine population, who in the face of climate change and receding glaciers, reject reforms to the Glacier Law, spearheaded by a libertarian radically pro-mining president who has labeled environmental defenders lunatics. A global record-setting 106,000 people signed up for the hearing held last week to discuss reforms to the glacier law in Congress. Milei decided to leave the public outside of the debate, only allowing about 100 people to speak. They were overwhelmingly against the reforms.
Argentina’s Glacier Law dates to 2008 and was first passed with unanimous approval by Argentina’s Congress. The mining provinces didn’t quite understand at that time just how invasive mining operations were to glaciers. They also didn’t realize that ice formed under the surface of mountain slopes, and that mining companies were digging it up to get at minerals. Barrick Gold’s Pascua Lama, which was not yet operational, would be the biggest victim of the glacier law and the project’s proponents immediately took action to kill the glacier law.
Then President Cristina Fernandez took the call from the mining sector, and vetoed the law, which infamously became known as the Barrick Veto. She explicitly cited impacts to mining operations as a reason for the veto. Environment Minister Romina Picolotti, a strong proponent of the law, resigned from office in protest over the veto. But the law would come back in 2010, following national acclamation and a heated two-year Congressional debate which ended in favor of the glaciers, and against projects like El Pachon (now in preparatory stages and operated by Glencore), Los Azules (McEwen Mining) which has been stalled since the glacier law passed in 2010, and Pascua Lama (Barrick Gold) which died shortly after the glacier law passed, and over a dozen others in line awaiting for the glacier to be removed as they are squarely in periglacial and/or glacial environments, which continue to be fully protected by the law.
Milei tried once before to derail the glacier law in an omnibus bill that failed in Congress last year. This time, however, he succeeded in getting the necessary votes to reform the law. The reform gives provinces the discretion of choosing which glaciers and periglacial areas to protect and which to sacrifice, the latter under the guise of labeling them irrelevant as hydrological reserves. The new law, if it survives judicial review, essentially gives sub national governments that wish to put mining over glacier water supply a say over science, letting them to decide if a certain glacier or periglacial area, functions or not as a hydrological reserve or doesn’t act as a basin regulator.
Ice holds water, and when that ice melts it contributes to stream flows, no matter its size or form, say environmental groups. That’s also what Argentina’s glacier law currently says. The reform, ironically, doesn’t change that, perhaps an oversight of the mining lobby, which to this day doesn’t really understand the science behind permafrost. A judge with any environmental conscious would likely agree, say environmentalists. What is certain is that there will be a difficult road ahead for mining companies like Glencore and McEwen, who may be happy with today’s Congressional wink to their host provinces to move aside glacier protection barriers, but will continue to face long term social license and legal uncertainty for their projects.
for more information: ambienteperiglacial@gmail.com
Publications by CHRE on Mining and Glaciers
Risks to Glaciers & Periglacial Environments at the Cerro Amarillo Project (Spanish)
Barrick’s Glaciers. 2013
Glaciers & Periglacial Environments in Diaguita-Huascoaltino Indigenous Territory
Impact to Rock Glaciers and Periglacial Environments by Los Azules
Impacts to Rock Glaciers and Periglacial Environments by Filo Colorado and Agua Rica
Impact to Glaciers by El Pachon. (English) (Spanish)
The Periglacial Environment and the Mining Sector in Argentina: National Glacier Law
Photo Credit: Jaime Olivos – Infobae