In the unfinished public hearing held last Friday, the statement made by the Governor of Santander was overwhelming when he asked the Government not to grant an environmental license to the Greystar project.  His statement joins the demand made by 40,000 people who marched on the 25^th of February, including authorities, legislators, parliamentarians, unions, universities, environmentalists, and more. Apart from employees, contractors and political beneficiaries of Greystar, the rejection of the open pit mine in the páramos of Santander has been unanimous; both for legal & ethical reasons, as well as for common sense.

Published by Jairo Puentes Brugues

09/03/2011.  Due to this fact, the position assumed by the Ministry of Environment since the beginning of the process is inexplicable. We must recall that the Ministry backed off of its decision to reject the project and then inexplicably agreed to receive the study presented by Greystar. Doing so despite of its legal infeasibility, since it is located in the páramos where there are sources of water for human consumption. This fact in itself constitutes an irregularity that hopefully will be investigated by the authorities. This government can argue that this problem began with the past government, but 7 months have already passed since Santos took office and the Ministry has done nothing to define the situation, creating a tense environment of uncertainty.

Apart from the risks to the páramo, there are obvious dangers to water quality. The proposed wastewater treatment for Greystar is based on the INCO system, which begins with “a tank for cyanide destruction”.  But in these processes cyanide is not “destroyed” but rather “transformed” into derivatives such as cyanates, some derivatives of which are more toxic than the cyanide itself. In addition, for the reaction to reduce cyanide concentrations to below the standard for dumping, it should occur at 25^oC. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the United States: “at 5^oC the residual concentration of cyanide ends up at 2mg/litre of water”, which is well above the standard for liquid waste dumping. The average temperature in the area is around 5^oC, according to Greystar. For the EPA this system does not remove “significant levels” of thiocyanate, cyanate, ammonia, nitrates, metals and arsenic, so that “additional treatment units are required.” Therefore, as the process does not meet the standards nor does it remove other pollutants, all of them end up in the water that we drink.