In order to explain this subject, it is imperative to clearly detail the conditions needed to establish mega-mining in a region.

• That there exist appropriate paths and means of communication.
• That the use of enormous quantities of water is permitted without control or cost.
• That enormous quantity of electric energy and diesel is available at a subsidized price.
• That the residents of the area ignore the consequences of the activity.
• That the community be held responsible for the pollution and destruction that is provoked and left [by the mega-mining].
• That the government be corrupt, aiding in keeping the secret and repressing the people that oppose suffering the consequences of the mega-extraction

A vast, costly and harmful plan by the national government for the electric energy generation is going to be put into effect for mining corporations and paid for by all of Argentina's citizens.

Five reservoirs will be built in Patagonia, in the area of the Andes mountain range, to provide energy for the newly projected mega-mining works. The information about the effects these reservoirs will have on the environment show that they will cause serious damage to the wealth and natural resources of the area. They are quickly being put into effect and are planning new thermal power stations to produce electricity needed for the new mines. For example, the plan for a new thermal power station in Rio Turbio, to give free electricity to the mega-mine in Santa Cruz.

Furthermore, our country, in accordance with the announcement made by the government in August of 2006, will suffer a wave of nuclear technology. The National Atomic Plan projects that the nuclear centre in Embalse, Cordoba, which is obsolete and should be put out of service immediately before it produces a serious accident, will be subjected to modifications and repairs. Starting in 2009, at a cost of more than 1200 million pesos, these repairs will allow it to be used for another 25 years. They want to do the same to Atucha 1. To calm any of the residents' fears, they say "it's like rectifying a car motor" ⁴⁹. The Atucha 2 centre will be built at a cost of 1800 million pesos. When this is ready, close to 2010, they will commence the construction of another large centre, 1000 megawatts, at an estimated cost of more than 6000 million pesos. The Uranium enrichment plant in Pilcaniyea, close to Bariloche, will be reactivated as well as that of heavy water in Arroyito, in Neuquen. Also in Sierra Pintada, Mendoza, even though now, thanks to the Cobos Law (7722), this is prohibited. There are new undertakings being promoted by the National Commission of Atomic Energy to extract more uranium. The entire plan, driven by the then-president Néstor Kirchner adds up to a cost of 8500 million dollars at the end of eight years.

Upon preparing an undertaking for uranium mining in Mendoza, Cordoba, the National Commission of Atomic Energy summoned a public audience to who they were to present the project. Many people from the country, concerned by the energy and contamination problem, attended the event paying its fees from their own pockets. Upon realizing that the majority opposed the project, the National Commission of Atomic Energy cancelled the public audience, leaving the citizens waiting.

The employment provided by the mine is the mining corporations' main argument that mining is beneficial for the affected population. There are many lies that hide behind this promise. One of them is that they make lists of people who desire jobs, but very few are given, and those left on the list are threatened that if they join the protest against the mining and its pollution, they will be taken off the list. Those that work in the more dangerous posts are subjected to periodic blood analyses and their results aren't revealed to the employee. When these analyses indicate a certain degree of intoxication, the employee concerned is then fired without any explanation. The person gets sick a little while later and the mining job is not considered to have had any affect on his/her illness. ⁵⁰

Deception is also apparent in the country's employment figures, which include all mining jobs: flagstone, marble, lime quarries, etc. The latter activities, less contaminating than "great-mining", have a larger proportion of employees. They also deceive when they include "indirect jobs" among its merits. Any economic activity generates indirect jobs; this is not something unique to the mega-mining industry.

In the meantime, the tax money is diverted by the government to create propaganda campaigns designed to cover the backs of the mining businesses. For example, "The Government of the Catamarca Province has decided to reinforce communication surrounding the activity, because many misinformed individuals twist their words to persecute mining" ⁵¹. Because of this, a new state body has been created, the Directory of Social Mining Promotion, "to promote mining activities, credits, community participation and education".

In addition, the government shamelessly operates for the trans-national companies when they allow them to make their negligible amount of tax contributions in the middle of propaganda campaigns, such as when the Alumbrera Mine "gives" refractions to hospitals in Tucamán and Catamarca.

The mining corporations' penetration is facilitated by the acculturation process that we've suffered throughout our "education". This education has separated us from nature, has made us believe that we are no longer part of nature; rather that nature is a detached object apart from us and subject to exploitation.

In this manner we come to live in the mountains or plains and we don't even know what role the mountains play in the biological cycle that allows life in them as well as in the surrounding plains, even those farthest away. In the moment of performing highly contaminating and destructive activities, the mountains' function is ignored. The way its flat incline allows the recirculation of water that is then evaporated, elevated by the sun and newly lifted to the higher regions where the rain above the mountains allows it to flow again to the lower regions.

Finally, this government and mining corporation nonsense is pushed forward thanks to the same governments that have managed to destroy the regional and national economies for many years. The people were pressed into a situation in which, not only is a job given in exchange for a salary, but the corporations can obtain labour, plus the environment and submission, for the same price. A population without money is easily subjugated.

Government Mega-Mining Propaganda in schools

During the term of Daniel Filmus B.S., the National Minster of Education, Science and Technology, he prepared, edited and distributed a colour-illustrated book in the schools with propaganda in favour of the mega-extraction in Bajo de La Alumbrera, "a model case". ⁵²

The book is designated to provide fodder so that the students may respond to proposed questions in a manner appropriate to the visions of the mining companies. In this way for example, the subject of the economic benefits that exploitation provides for the company can be easily manipulated. The deception begins when estimations are cited by the Secretary of Industry, Commerce and Mining that say "the exports of this sector [mining] - together with the car and gas terminals - will produce an additional influx of 3500 million dollars in the next 12 months". Then, more explicitly, a list is made of the "impacts" of this undertaking and affirms that "The project will also have a positive financial impact at the national level, stemming from a payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditures for exports and other ensuing totals of taxes and royalties". ⁵³ This is completely false. The mining corporations are not obligated to pay the country any profits made by mineral sales. The cost for salaries and charters is deducted from the royalties on mineral values from the mine entrance - the lowest value at a paltry 3%. The final result is a 1.2% tax on a total put forward by the mining company and not verified by anyone.

In an example of the kind of "investigation" this book shows our youth, the subject of mining labour accidents is approached, and is only supported by illegible and incomplete graphs provided by the business. To extract information from these graphs, the students would have to be mind-readers.

The book neglects to present information from the affected side or to consult an independent party. Another of the book's "successes" is having fifty office-sized pages on open-air mining without mentioning even once the word cyanide or acid drainage. ⁵⁴

But the most worrisome is the "investigation" made into the environmental and contamination problems. In the section titled "The Impact on Resources" - it doesn't say environment - it references the assertion that the exploitation of the Bajo de La Alumbrera is contaminating. They admit that there exists a certain "preoccupation for the resources in which we live" but the text hastens to inform students that there exist only two positions on this subject: "the groups that appear to want a regression to the past, so they ask that factories be eliminated, that energy centres be dismantled and that an end be put to all human activity that generates any kind of contamination" and "our position in defence of the environment [that] considers nature to be a fountain of resources, whose exploitation is linked to human survival". ⁵⁵

Continuing in this manner of "investigation", the authors limit themselves to only interviewing a director of the mining company on the subject, who assures everything is fine and falls within the environmental laws. The text carries on, without further formalities, trusting the corporation's answers and closing the topic, but not without first emphasizing the corporation's efforts by presenting an environmental report to the legislature that is so detailed it occupies 16 volumes.

We cannot help but be surprised upon hearing, thanks to this notable book, of the incredible collateral benefits that mega-mining brings. From this extraction "the land can even benefit from certain activities; in the case, for example, of agriculture, which improves with the tilling of the ground". The book doesn't explain how agriculture would be possible without water, nor what edible vegetable species prosper when grown in a ground affected by acid drainage and contamination by heavy metals.

The instructional effort made by the book to date back to pre-historic mining times and then pass through the Renaissance Age up to modern day deserves a paragraph of its own. Upon mentioning the book De Re Metallica (1556) by Georg Baur-Agriculturist-they forget to mention that this author knew how to honourably record the protest made by people against the mining company in that era. These people saw that fertile lands were being rendered unusable; the forests were cut down to obtain wood for constructing galleries; that water that had been used to wash and treat minerals poisoned the rivers and killed the fish. The people surrounding the mines concluded that "it's evident that the destruction provoked by mining exploitation is greater than the value of the metals that are obtained" which upon adding up the figures, resulted too expensive for the community. Nothing of this is mentioned by the authors of the book being distributed in schools by the Board of Education, they only mention the effort made by Bauer to publish the recorded details that show the machinery used in the mining works.

Unfortunately, this is not the only mega-mining propaganda that the government distributes in schools. There is at least one signed by the Nation's President and designated for elementary schools. 56 In fact, this was also observed in our country when the English mines devastated the Lengas Forest in Neuquen last century.

49- More than 3000 million pesos have been spent in Atucha II [David Hammerstein: Can nuclear energy save the climate?, ecoportal.net].
50- Another additional bitter pill lies in the fact that the salaries paid by the corporations-as well as the charters-aren't counted as part of the extremely low royalties that they must pay.
51- Cited by the Panorama Minero Magazine, February 2008.
52 - Project development from a model case. ISBN: 950-00-0323-6. Authors: Roberto Damin and Gabriel Serfini, pedagogue: Beatriz Alen.
53 - Credit 1/2 and 3/3
54 - The particular form the gold was in - at present the gold resources are used up - in this place permitted a type of processing based in large water consumption without the use of cyanide. However, during this same period, the gigantic extraction in Cerro Vanguardia of Santa Cruz was very discretely begun, during the Néstor Kirchner administration, and this is performed with cyanide, which is the standard procedure of gold mega-mining.
55 - Credit 17/1

Source: Notes on the socio-environmental effects of Mega-Mining
By Marcelo Acuña - April 11th, 2008 [Part VI]