http://lo-de-alla.org/2013/04/el-salvador-mining-companies-want-their-share/#more-3935
El Salvador: Mining companies want their share<http://lo-de-alla.org/2013/04/el-salvador-mining-companies-want-their-share/> *Environmental contamination and sickness are the result of years of mining in La Unión* [Translation of an article from *ContraPunto* of El Salvador for April 13, 2013. See original here<http://www.contrapunto.com.sv/ambiente/mineras-a-por-su-tajada-sin-responder-por-los-danos> .] By Gerardo Arbaiza *San Salvador* In the extreme east of the country, in the canton of San Sebastián in the Santa Rosa de Lima municipality of La Unión, is a good example of extreme neglect by government authorities, despite its being beside the most profitable gold mine in the country, a mine worked from 1968 to the beginning of the 80s by the United States company Commerce Group, from which a total of seven billion dollars is said to have been extracted, from which no benefit for the community is to be seen. The list of tribulations in San Sebastián is long: the sulphurous color of the water in the San Sebastián River extends a depressing welcome to a community that, its inhabitants say, is visited by officials only when legislative and mayoral candidates are looking for votes. The acidity of this water (pH between four and five) makes it impossible to drink, comments Cidia Cortez, a researcher with the Centro de Investigación sobre Inversión y Comercio (CEICOM Center for Research into Investment and Commerce). According to Cortez, the sulphurous rock taken from the mine, which also has high levels of iron, turns the water reddish upon contact. Animals continue drinking the water and it is feared that the harmful substances taken from the mine are getting into peoples bodies through the food chain. Cortez points out another detail as well: upstream, the water is more clear, so the people use it a little more confidently, but she delares that it is just as contaminated. The mine waste is spread throughout the area and the adobe in some houses is made with the waste, she adds. People here are aware of the dangers but some seem indifferent, Humberto Cruz of the Comité del Medio Ambiente [Committee on the Environment] of Santa Rosa de Lima says. Cruz explains that another problem for the community is the contamination of the soil because of the sulphur, for which reason it cannot be used for cultivation. Cruz says that because of this phenomenon very few people work in agriculture and leave for other areas outside the canton. In addition, others move to Santa Rosa de Lima to work in the service sector. The activist indicates that there have been attempts in the past by other companies to resume the intensive mining operation but that opposition from the communities has prevented it. Several other businesses have come here to try to exploit but we know that they are the same people, who have changed costumes and claimed they are new, that it was the others who caused the damage, Cruz declares. Despite the fact that there is no large-scale exploitation, the * güiriceros* are another particular element in this context. The * güiriceros* separate gold in an artisanal way, with a solvent based on mercury, without the protection called for and in the same way go into the mine, subjecting themselves to high temperatures. Another concern is access to potable water from other sources. Luis Alonso Blanco, a resident of the area, says that in summer the wells cannot be used and that the only source of useable water comes from the surface of the wells and only in winter. In general, Blanco explains, well water is used only to wash dishes and clothes, so they need to buy barrels of water to drink, at a cost of two dollars and fifty cents. CEICOM specialists mention that the contaminants in the water and the soil are related most importantly to renal insufficiency and to the rare Guillain-Barré syndrome, which has a serious effect on the nervous system. CEICOM reports from the area list six cases of the syndrome in the community of 3,000 inhabitants. The World Health Organization has established that the average level of incidence of the syndrome is one case for every 100,000 persons. Commerce Group abandoned its operations in the San Sebastián mine in 1983, leaving a legacy of contamination that has expanded gradually in the three decades since then. In 2006, the Salvadoran state denied Commerce Group a permit to continue operating in San Sebastián and the mining company counter-attacked with a 100-million-dollar lawsuit before the tribunal of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). They argued in their lawsuit that the Salvadoran state had denied them the ability to extract the estimated 3.5 million ounces of gold still in the mine. On the international market, an ounce of gold is valued on the New York market at 1480 dollars. Humberto Cruz states that at the current rate of exploitation, the San Sebastián mine will be depleted in eight to ten years. In March, 2011, the ICSID rejected the Commerce Group lawsuit because it did not follow the procedures on the same case before the Sala de lo Contencioso Administrativo [Chamber for Administrative Litigation] of the Supreme Court of El Salvador. In 2009, the Canadian company Pacific Rim filed a lawsuit for 77 million dollars, the investment expenses, it argued, that it had made since 2005 for mining exploration in the El Dorado mine in Cabañas. The mine has close to 1,400,000 ounces of gold. ICSID rejected the suit in 2009 and in June, 2012, ordered the case to be resolved on the basis of the Law on Investments and not on the Free Trade Agreement with the United States (TLC), as the mining company had hoped. In early April, the United States subsidiary of the Canadian PacRim Cayman LLC mining company increased the amount of the suit against the Salvadoran state by 315 million dollars. Intervention by Pacific Rim in the department of Cabañas has been the source of conflicts for those who oppose the projects and have already denounced in the past several assassinations of activists and death threats. Between 2009 and 2011, four assassinations of members of the Comité Ambientalista de Cabañas, the main opponents to mining projects in the area, were reported. The situation has reached such a point that US Senator Patrick Leahy (Democrat for Vermont) has expressed to US President Barack Obama his concern over the deaths of the activists. 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