Six Years Ago an Environmental Audit Was Expected At the Río Turbio Coal Mines
In 2002, the General Audit Office recommended that the "necessary actions to remedy the environmental impacts" caused by the mining activity be implemented. It was after the rescission of the concession contract with the company that exploited for eight years the coal fields of Santa Cruz. But the state intervention, managed in the last years by two different Secretariats, does not have documentation that demonstrates if those works were done or not.
After six years of state intervention at the Río Turbio coal fields, there are no records of the environmental impact study recommended by the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) in 2002.
The analysis of the state of the environment in the southwest of Santa Cruz was obligatory according to Decree 1034 of 2002, which provided, mainly, for the termination of the concession contract by which the company Yacimientos Carboníferos Río Turbio S.A. Exploited the resources of the mines for eight years. This rescission was based on the "irregularities" detected after the firm's management, which affected "the preservation of the environment, the custody, maintenance and conservation of the concessioned assets, the payment of assets to staff and their pension contributions, Compliance with mandatory investments and the payment of the mining fee, "states an AGN report of 2007.
Thus, in 2002, the deposit went to state hands and was under the orbit of the Secretary of Energy of the Nation. A year later, the complex passed to the Ministry of Industry Commerce and Mining national. The obligation to carry out the environmental audit was included in the transfer of control.
During its work in 2007, the AGN requested to the intervention of the deposit the documentation on the environmental studies. But "both in the Buenos Aires delegation and in the offices (in Santa Cruz), they were not aware of the existence of the requested documentation," says the control body. In addition, "it is unknown who was the company in charge of the work", that is, it is not possible to know if the environmental audit was done or not. The mine authorities' response was that "there was no material from the previous intervention", referring to the period in which the complex was administered by the Secretariat of Energy.
The main concerns that the mining activity produces in the environment are related to the accumulation and the advance over the valley of a waste called "sterile", which is separated from the mineral. That residue represents 50% of the material extracted from the mines and arises from the stage of washing and purifying the coal, which is carried out on the surface, outside the mine. In addition, the dumping of sludge over watercourses is also detrimental to the environment. According to the latest work of the AGN, these variables "present the same conditions as in the previous report", 2002, with the exception of "partial emptying of the mud pools to prolong their useful life and minimize the risk of overflow fill."
At the margin, while the substance, to some extent, is naturally compacted, artificial turrets formed in Río Turbio that "have clearly unstable slopes", explains the Audit, adding that the location of these deposits are "inadequate" from the point Of environmental view, and constitute "a potential risk factor for the inhabitants and infrastructure works located downstream". On the other hand, the volume of barren recorded in the area is comparable with "the total of the coal produced since the beginning of the extractive activities, in 1943", that is to say, near 30 million tons.
After the tragic accident of June 2004, the intervention of the deposit decided to prioritize the tasks of safety and hygiene of the work over the environmental problems that were trailing of previous efforts. As of July 2007, the Ministry of Mining of the Nation, the Province of Santa Cruz and the state company Yacimientos Carboníferos Río Turbio, signed an agreement to evaluate the environmental damages caused by the extraction. Despite the fact that the AGN had recommended in 2002 the implementation of the "actions necessary to remedy the environmental impacts" recorded in the 2007 report concluded that "until the signing of the agreement (of that year), no measures were observed to regularize the previously generated environmental liabilities ".
Another of the recommendations made by the Watchdog in 2002 was to determine the responsibilities for the irregularities verified in the environmental management control of the reservoir and, if necessary, to apply the corresponding sanctions. However, six years later, the Audit did not observe any of these actions being implemented.