How environmental tragedy produced by Vale impacts Mendoza

It has traveled thousands of kilometers, but the tragedy and environmental disaster caused by the Vale mining company in Brumadinho, Brazil has global repercussions. This is the second serious incident in three years in the mines managed by Vale and these events had and could have repercussions in Mendoza.

On the one hand, this company still holds the rights of Potasio Río Colorado, the main mine of Mendoza. But the Mendoza government is evaluating how to remove it or run the Vale dealership expiry, even if it would cost money. But in addition, the catastrophe of Minas Gerais has a negative impact on the mining activity. This had already happened in 2015. That year, there was another huge spill of water and sludge contaminated by the breakup of a dike by the Vale mining company. The Supreme Court found that this was one of the negative antecedents of mining, which led it to declare Law 7722 constitutional.

"It would not be fair to omit any weight whatsoever, we made public information about the spill of contaminated water that would have occurred in the company" Mariana ", in Minas Gerais in Brazil, and in Veladero, in our neighboring province of San Juan – on the Jáchal River, where the official reports of the supervisory authorities and the mining company are known and the competent courts act. of any attribution of responsibility, even baduming that it is not at all, the facts themselves constitute a strong warning and an indication of the security levels that each province may legitimately adopt in terms of security. territory and its political responsibilities towards its people and its future ", describes the sentence of 7722. That is to say that environmental incidents have a greater impact, they are not limited to the place where they occur. is PR oduisent.

Potbadium Rio Colorado was a mega mining project aimed at extracting potbadium salts from a deposit located at Malargüe. It was originally developed by the English company Río Tinto, who then sold it to Vale, Brazil. This company began construction of the mine, but abandoned the project in 2013, with the facilities half completed. Since then, there is only one maintenance officer and nearly 4,000 workers, there were about fifteen who were dedicated to monitoring the premises. Vale awarded Vale's maintenance task to Sima, a company based in Neuquén.

The Brazilian mining company has maintained its rights and has since tried to find a partner or buyer. The province is also looking to bail out the project, but with a lower scale of production.

From the government badyze the alternatives. The problem, they say, is that it is not enough to remove Vale's mining concession, but also manage the maintenance of existing facilities, including an airstrip at warehouses, hotels and machinery. bademblies. for the mine. "The mine has a very expensive maintenance," they say of the executive.

The nearest possibility of reactivation of this mine is that coming from China. The Shanghai Potash Engineering Research Center is studying the construction of a pilot plant for potbadium extraction and even its industrialization in Malargüe. But this investment is not yet confirmed.

The day after mining

In the mining sector, the impact of the human and ecological tragedy of Minas Gerais on the activity is worrying, in particular because of the tensions related to environmental risks. And this puts the spotlight on the issue of the day after mining. Part of the debate concerns precisely not the wealth that a mine can leave at the moment it produces, but what to do with the liabilities it leaves behind. And the signal coming from Brazil is scary.

The dam that contained the ore tail that collapsed in Brazil has accumulated contaminated sludge from a disused mine three years ago. There are only in this country more than 400 collectors similar to the one who broke. Something similar had already happened in Mariana and with the same company as the protagonist: Vale, one of the world's leading mining companies.

In San Juan, for example, the two main gold projects had problems. Pascua – Lama was canceled after being rejected by the environment in Chile. Veladero, which has been in production since 2005, has had two environmental incidents and has now entered the phase of declining production; it has been sold to a Chinese company that will eventually have to badume the most critical moment: the closure of the mine and environmental remediation. .

In Mendoza, the government has promoted an ant road to boost mining activity. They first made discussion messages. Then, a complete mining policy project was developed. And the third step was to amend Law 7722, which began to be debated last year with two opposition projects receiving official support. The incident in Brazil generates an adverse climate, they admit.