Spills of mining companies | The Brumadinho is a …

More than 100 dead, 200 missing and a village buried under thousands of tons of toxic mud. This is the disaster of the Vale mining company in Brumadinho (Brazil), which occurred last January. But this is not the only tragedy of the mega-mining, which causes hundreds of accidents, deaths and extremely serious contamination. United Nations data indicate that since the 1990s, mega-mines have caused at least 100 "failure-accidents", including 27 "very serious" (with more than 20 deaths). In Argentina, the Barrick Gold spills in San Juan and the contamination of Minera Alumbrera in Catamarca are the main concerns.

The United Nations Environment Program (UN-UN) has confirmed at least 104 waste dams (gigantic mining dumps) from the years 1990 to 2016. The report, published in 2017, is entitled " Retention Dyke: Safety is Not a Chance ", 70 pages.

The report processed information from 1915 to 2016 and had a total of 289 "failures" of mining dykes. Forty-three were "very serious," with more than 20 deaths and / or spills of more than one million cubic meters.

The direct antecedent of Brumadinho is the collapse of the dike of the Samarco mine in November 2015 (in the city of Bento Rodíguez, also in Brazil), with 17 dead and 200 missing. The responsible companies were the multinationals Vale (Brazil) and BHP-Billiton (England-Australia).

In August 2014, in Canada, the tailings dam at Mount Polley Mine collapsed (Imperial Metals) and caused the largest mining disaster in the history of this country. It dumped more than 25 million cubic meters of mine waste into Polley Lake.

In 2014, the multinational Grupo México (owned by magnate Germán Larrea) caused the biggest mining disaster in the country with its mining company Buenavista del Cobre in Cananea. It dumped 40,000 cubic meters of copper sulphate, contaminated three rivers over 250 km and left more than 22,000 people without water. Marcelo Giraud is a member of the People's Assembly of Water of Mendoza, a geographer and specialist in the effects of mining. He said that the catastrophes of the multinational Vale in Brazil are not exceptions. "We know that Vale or the Brazilian state is not particularly more irresponsible than the others." Vale acts like all other transnational corporations of its kind and the government of Minas Gerais and Brazil are neither more nor less corrupt. or irresponsible as the rest of Latin America, "he said.

The Assembly of Jáchal (San Juan) wrote an open letter to the victims of Vale in Brazil. He recalled the Barrick Gold spill at the Veladero mine in 2015 (more than a million liters of contaminated solution reaching the rivers) and also highlighted the situation of Samarco in 2015 (Brazil): "Both facts do not They are not only unpunished, they are continuing contaminating, and they are doing so with the complicity of the governments.The primarization of the economy is so brutal and ungodly that we can badure South America a new historical looting. And we are resisting the destruction of our lives. "

In Catamarca, Minera Alumbrera has been active for over 20 years (Glencore Xstrata, Goldcorp and Yamana Gold). Its mineraloducto (a large pipe that carries the concentrate for hundreds of kilometers) had at least half a dozen ruptures and spills. The company acknowledged the leakage of the waste rock dam (which contaminates the groundwater). And for years, the inhabitants of Catamarca (many of them concentrated in the Assembly El Algarrobo, Andalgalá) warn about the possible collapse of the tailings dam (huge landfill of 30 hectares and 150 meters deep) . The provincial government, which has always promoted mining activity and defended the actions of Alumbrera, says that there is no risk. But that has never allowed independent experts to enter the repository. The same action of the Government of Brazil before the mining company Vale.

Horacio Machado Aráoz is part of the small group of academics who lives in the territories affected by extractivism (Catamarca), walks with the socio-environmental bademblies (integrates the collective Sumak Kawsay) and does not theorize from offices in town. Researcher Conicet, in his doctoral dissertation "Mineral Nature, A Political Ecology of Modern Colonialism", badyzed the dangers and risks of mining. The case of Latin America describes in detail the collapse of the El Soldado mine (Chile, 1965), with a death toll of 154. The collapse of the Otapara plant dam (Peru, 1996) caused the spillage of tailings on the Acarí River (Arequipa). The breakup of the Codelco Andean division dam (Chile, 2000), with a spill of 5300 cubic meters of tailings, caused the death of livestock and the clogging of crops. Fracture of the Cerro Negro mine dam (Chile, 2003), spilling 50,000 tonnes of toxic sludge that contaminated the waterways. He recalled that the collapse of the wharves was not the only danger of mega-extraction. He added to the list the underground filtrations of these dams, the failures in the pipelines, the discharge of chemical substances, the transport of toxic substances and the pollution of the product of the air explosions, among others.