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October 26 2011 – San Juan, Argentina. Confronted with a satellite image review and the imminent publication of a report on mining impacts to glaciers at the Los Azules copper project in the high Andes mountains of Argentina (carried out by the environmental group Center for Human Rights and Environment-CEDHA), Minera Andes (now McEwen Mining of Canada) has invited CEDHA along with its glacier experts, to visit the project site as soon as the winter lets up (early 2012).
CEDHA plotted 200+ glaciers utilizing Google Earth images, at the Los Azules (Minera Andes) mine site and access roads.
The Country Manager in charge of operations at Los Azules, Carlos Liggesmeyer, in a letter dated October 7th, was inconclusive on the eventual presence of glaciers revealed by CEDHA, but indicated that the company is carrying out its own study of glacier forms in the project area. Liggesmeyer states in Minera Andes’ letter to CEDHA that “it would be premature for CEDHA to publish a report
“without first carrying out an on-site inspection of the project area, particularly on behalf of your glacier experts … in our commitment to the environment and to transparency, we cordially invite your glacier experts to visit Los Azules once the access roads are open and the camp is fully operational … so that they can conduct an independent and credible evaluation of the glacier characteristics of Los Azules”. (translated from Spanish by CEDHA)
CEDHA has contributed extensively to the debate in Argentina’s Congress which led to the eventual adoption of the world’s first National Glacier Protection Act, which prohibits mining in glacier areas. Other laws to protect glaciers are also appearing in provincial legislatures. Through an initiative it calls “Democratizing Glaciers”, CEDHA has been systematically disseminating information on glacier and permafrost presence near mining operations, in much of Argentina’s high arid regions, such as San Juan, La Rioja and Catamarca provinces, where glaciers perform the critical function of providing freshwater during especially dry periods. Glacier presence unfortunately coincides with some of the most vigorous exploratory work for new mining operations that arrived in Argentina in the mid 1990s and which has been growing. The problem is that until now, noone has looked into how these operations were affecting glaciers and permafrost.
One of CEDHA’s key concerns is the introduction of mining exploratory roads in the region, which occurs haphazardly, and in complete disregard for the region’s delicate ice reserves which communities downstream depend on for irrigation, human consumption, and local industry.
“Nobody has told mining companies (until now) that they couldn’t and shouldn’t harm permafrost or plunge their bulldozers into rock glaciers, a special type of glacier. In fact, many mining companies’ bulldozer drivers were surprised to find ice under rock. Rock glaciers and debris covered glaciers are especially vulnerable due to their rock cover, which makes them nearly invisible to the untrained eye of a bulldozer driver cutting into mountainsides so that mining drilling equipment can be installed to search for valuable metals”, says Jorge Daniel Taillant, CEDHA’s founder, and Coordinator of its Mining, Environment and Human Rights Program. Cutting through a glacier can completely alter the ice dynamics of the moving ice, leading to massive land and ice slides.
Argentina’s new glacier law protects glaciers and periglacial environmental (permafrost, which is essentially moist earth which freezes for prolonged periods of time). “Today, projects like Barrick Gold’s Veladero and Pascua Lama, which are smack in the middle of permafrost and glacier zones, would never be approved,” adds Taillant. “Imagine that before our Glacier Law, Barrick suggested it could dynamite glaciers and haul them off in dump trucks so that they could get at gold deposits under the ice! This is a company which hires publicly funded glacier experts to do glacier inventories, and then hides the information from the public, claiming there are no glaciers at its mining site! This sort of abuse needs to be addressed in mining operations in Argentina. Glaciers are a public good and information about glaciers has to be accessible to everyone.”
Other projects in the region, such as Vicuña, Las Flechas, Potrerillos, Del Carmen, Amos Andres, and several others, may run into serious problems getting Environmental Impact studies approved, as they too are in the middle of glacier territory. This is why companies like Barrick are attacking the National Glacier Law in the Argentine Supreme Court. Barrick knows that the upcoming Pascua Lama project, as well as other exploration currently underway near its Veladero mine, may run into serious difficulties with the National Glacier Protection Law.
A trip through Google Earth to the area reveals serious concerns of mining roads cutting into glaciers, and while permafrost is not visible through satellite images, it is likely that it is present in large quantities in the same area. Xstrata’s own geomorphological map indicates that the El Pachón site is some 20% permafrost. That’s illegal according to the National Glacier Act. But leaving the law aside, even from a project safety standpoint, constructing a mining operation on unstable and moving ice poses serious threats not only to the environment but also to mining workers and communities.
A known glacier expert and geologist, Juan Pablo Milana, claims that a tailings waste pile site recently collapsed at Barrick’s Veladero mine, and this was probably due to the fact the company ignored rock glaciers and permafrost presence at the mine site, placing its waste rock tailings on rock debris that contained large quantities of ice beneath the surface. The added weight, claims Milana, is likely to have altered the ice structure and thermal balance, leading to a probable collapse of the ice. It is this sort of gross error and omission CEDHA wants avoided at the Los Azules site.
CEDHA is carrying out its own glacier inventory, identifying and registering glaciers in easily identifiable formats and language, making glaciers more easily accessible on the internet for anyone. “You don’t need to know much about glaciers or glacier inventories to get a sense of the breath of the problem. The glaciers and the mining exploration roads are everywhere.” Says Taillant. “We’ve already inventoried over 1,500 glaciers and the database is growing every day. We’re also mapping mining projects on Google Earth, providing the public with basic information about more than 200 mining projects in the region up and down the Americas. Through CEDHA’s website, anyone can easily pinpoint many of the mining projects underway in the region and view them up-close, in 3 D and in relation to environmental resources and human populations nearby.”
As part of its Democratizing Glaciers Initiative CEDHA has created a website and Facebook page, devoted exclusively to disseminating information about glaciers, CEDHA has prepared numerous studies on the impacts of mining on glaciers and permafrost, including reports on the El Pachón and Filo Colorado projects, both of Xstrata Copper in San Juan and Catamarca provinces, respectively. CEDHA also meets regularly with actors across society, schools, business organizations (such as wine producers) to raise the awareness about the importance of glaciers to everyday life.
CEDHA’s most recent report (not yet published) contains over 70 pages of analysis on the presence of rock glaciers and permafrost at Minera Andes’ Los Azules project. The report raises concerns over access roads, past drilling, and the projected location of future project infrastructure. It is precisely these concerns what will be reviewed during the site visit. CEDHA has agreed to hold the publication of the report until after the site visit.
“Minera Andes’ willingness to invite CEDHA to the Los Azules project, before the project’s implementation phase is a key step forward in this new and conflictive debate over the impacts of mining to glaciers and permafrost”, said Taillant.
“We’ve got to de-mystify this debate. The fact is as a society we know very little about glacier, and we don’t yet have the tools that we need to guarantee glacier protection, and this is the case for both State and private sector. Even the Vatican released a report recently expressing concern over glacier melt all over the world. It’s a resource at risk to climate change, and we’re doing very little about reverting this trend. This ignorance is hindering our ability to advance with glacier protection. We need to inventory our glaciers as soon as possible, which will in turn help in protecting each and every one. If officially we don’t know where they are or that they exist, then how can the State carry out its due diligence to protect them? Mining companies must adhere to the law, and do their role to protect this delicate and critical resource, and we as civil society need to learn about glaciers so that we can check them and the State. It’s fantastic that Argentina has the world’s first national glacier protection act, but now we have to implement it and abide by it! We have to make sure that all previous damage to glaciers is repaired and we have to avoid all future damage. That’s simply the law and it’s also the right thing to do.
The visit to Los Azules is a critical step forward in the heated debate about mining impact to glaciers in the Andes. CEDHA will take two experienced glacier experts along to the site visit to Los Azules which it hopes will take place some time in early February 2012.
For more information:
Tel. 54 9 351 507 8376