¿MINING IN THE PÁRAMOS?¿Cyanide in our

water?

Páramo of Santurbán in Santander, Colombia

They are internacionally recognized for their huge reserves of water and biodiversity, because of their high capacity to capture atmospheric carbon, purify the environment, stabilize land and weather, prevent lanslides, and because they contain a great number of animals and endemic plants.

The páramos are high mountain territories, unique in the world, which only exist in Colombia (60%), Ecuador, Perú, Venezuela and Costa Rica.

That’s why the ground in the páramos are a kind of natural sponges that store water from rains, meltingwater and fog condensation.

They contribute to regulating the water cycle not only because they store water but because they release it slowly but constantly, clean and pure.

Because of the characteristics of ground and vegetation, the páramos have a bigger capacity to capture carbon than TROPICAL FOREST.

Oak Forest in Santurbán PáramoPhoto: Jorge William Sánchez Latorre

The high value in biodiversity that the páramos have is because of the singularity of the species living there, as many of them can’t be found in any other place in the world (they are endemic).

For example, 6 of every 10 species of plants in the páramos don’t grow in any other ecosystem. Also, there are the only habitat of the bear, the puma, and the Andean condor, and are refuge and reproduction areas of a big amount of animals in danger of extinction, particularly migratory birds, fish and amphibians.

“Mysticism and silent behind the fog of the Colombian Páramos a plant species that enrich this land, not only for its rare beauty, but for its ability to provide to its soil and species, including man, a vital resource: water. These are frailejones."

Semana Review, “The Monk Of The Páramos”, December 11 of 2010.

Conservation of the páramos is equivalent to protecting water, biodiversity and fighting against the climate crisis.

Photos: Jorge William Sánchez Latorre

Wathershed of Móngora in SanturbánPhoto: Elkin René Briceño Lara   

Santurbán is a complex of páramos in the departament of Santander, Colombia, that contains 253 identified species of plants and 42 species of birds.

This páramo provides water to over 2 million people in Bucaramanga, Cúcuta y 21 other small

towns in Colombia.

LÍMITE DEL TAJ O

PILA DE LIXIVIACION DE PAEZ

CAMPAMENTO

ESCOMBRERA DE MONGORA

PLANTA DE BENEFICIO

It is here that Canadian company GreyStar Resources LTD., wants to make an open pit

gold mining project with cyanide to extract gold and silver.

In total, 81% of the project is in the páramo, area which by law is not allowed to have mining.

According to the Colombian Mining Code, “mining exploration and extraction activities cannot be executed within areas declared and demarcated according to current norms for protection and development of renewable natural resources or the environment”, this includes páramos.

And even if the Mining Code wouldn’t say that, there already are special protections for páramos in our Constitution, in the 99 Law of 1993, in several sentences of the Constitucional Court, and in international Conventions like the Rio Declaration On Environment and Development, and The Convention on Biological Diversity, among others.

Extraction, benefit and tips areas of Angostura Project

Páramo of Santurbán

  “Mining explotation is absolutely and definitely prohibited in páramos and other areas of our national territory”

Beatriz Uribe Botero

Minister of Environment, Housing, and Territorial DevelopmentIntervention in the Senate, October 19th, 2010.www.presidencia.gov.co

Bucaramanga

Mining titles

Páramo of Santurbán

Aqueduct watersources that spring in the páramo, with gold mining titles

Aqueduct watersources that spring in the páramo, without gold mining titles

Aqueduct watersources that do not spring in the páramo.

But GreyStar insists in getting the permission to exploit gold and silver in the páramo, which implies locating leach pads full of cyanide over the water sources of

two million people.

The open pit mining would be between 200 and 400 meters deep, and would remove about 626 millions of m3 of rock and earth.

Seismicity induced by use of explosives

“mines located in areas near mountain summits, forests are felled and fertile soil cover removed, in addition to using explosives to shatter rocks to reach the material beneath them. Much of these rocks are transported to the adjacent valleys, where they bury and change the course of waterways.”

“To produce two grams of gold it is necessary to extract a ton of rocks of low quality, which generates an enormous amount of mine tailings in mining areas, (...) the large-scale mining projects that use cyanide use several million kilograms of sodium cyanide a year, and a failure in transport and storage can have catastrophic consequences."

Acid water generation

Why is open pit mining so harmful?

European Parliament resolution of 5 May 2010

RAVINES Angostura Páez La Baja Móngora El Salado Vetas River Suratá River

LAGOONS Páez Larga La Virgen La Barrosa Las Calles Pajaritos Guillermo Seca Cunta La Negra

Incentivize erosion and sedimentation processes;

Produce polluntants leachates, especially acid water;

Besides the fact that Santurbán is located in a sismic zone, there would be induced seismicity because of the use of explosives;

Irreversibly alter landscape and morphology of the area; and

Afect the water cycle and the aquaduct watersources, especially in the Suratá River and basins in the zone:

Among other things, Angostura project would:

The use of cyanide in the leaching process (to separate gold from rock), is the highest risk in open pit mining.

The risk is so high that May 5th 2010, European Parliament issued a resolution asking the European Comission to:

“Propose a complete ban on the use of cyanide mining technologies in the European Union before the end of 2011, since this is the only safe way to protect our water resources and ecosystems against cyanide pollution from mining activities, and to carry out an ordinary impact assessment at the same time”;

And “Calls on the Commission and the Member States not to support, either directly or indirectly, any mining projects in the EU that involve cyanide technology until the general ban is applicable, nor to support any such projects in third countries”

European Parliament resolution of 5 May 2010

“Whereas over the past 25 years more than 30 major accidents involving cyanide spills have occurred worldwide, the worst taking place 10 years ago, when more than 100 000 cubic meters of cyanide-contaminated water were released from a gold-mine reservoir into the Tisza-Danube River system and caused the largest ecological disaster in the history of central Europe at that time, and whereas there is no real guarantee that such accidents will not occur again, especially taking into account the increasing incidence of extreme weather conditions, inter alia heavy and frequent precipitation events, as projected by the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”

"The scientific evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. (The effects of open pit mining) are ubiquitous and very durable, there is also no evidence that practices designed to alleviate them can be successful in reversing the damage caused".

“Despite recent attempts to improve recovery practices, the enormity of the scale of mining in the mountain peaks makes it unrealistic to think that it is indeed possible to restore the areas or mitigate damage with the techniques available today. "

“They continue to grant operating permits despite the magnitude of scientific evidence showing that the impacts are everywhere and are irreversible, while the practices to mitigate the damages can not compensate for the losses".

The impacts of open pit mining are so important that north-american scientists asked their

government to declare a moratorium and not give more mining permissions in EEUU

Places where is prohibited cyanide mining:

- Turquía, since 1997

- Montana State, EEUU, since 1998

- Czeck Republic , since 2000

- New South Wales, Australia, since 2000

- Cotacachi, Ecuador, since 2000

- Gunnison, Colorado, EEUU, since 2001

- Costa Rica Republic, since 2002

- Costilla, Colorado, EEUU, since 2002

- -German Republic, since 2002

- Chubut, Argentina, since 2003

- Summit, Colorado, EEUU, since 2004

- Río Negro, Argentina, since 2005

While in lots of places in the world it is already prohibited to use cyanide in mining activities, or even open pit mining in general, in Colombia, with all the legal, ethical and technical tools, our authorities don’t want to deny a project that could affect the fifth largest city and could poison the water or two millon people.

If Angostura project is clearly ilegal and the Ministery of Environment itself has pointed

the impossibility of doing mining in páramos, why don’t they reject the environmental license that GreyStar requires to start open

pit mining in Santurbán?

Ask to the Ministery of Environment to put their words into deeds, to assert the national and

international Law to protect the páramos and

DENY THE ENVIRONMENTAL LICENCE TO THE ANGOSTURA PROJECT OF GREYSTAR IN

SANTURBÁN

http://www.reclamecolombia.org/

TO SEND THE PETITION OR LOOK AT MORE DOCUMENTS CLICK:

For more information write to:mineria@censat.orgred@reclamecolombia.org

This slide is made with the invaluable graphic inputs of:

Jorge William Sánchez LatorreTerrae GroupOrlando Vargas

Adriana EspinosaNatalia JiménezElkin René Briceño Lara

We used information and graphic material from the slides presented in the forum“Open pit mining and water”, organized by Bucaramanga Engineering Society on August 27, 2010:* Germán Augusto Figueroa Galvis (Metropolitan Aqueduct of Bucaramanga)* Nancy Yáñez Fuenzalida (City Centre)* Elías Pinto (Ministery of of Environment, Housing, and Territorial Development)* Investro Presentation of Angostura Project (GreyStar Resources LTD.)

We also got images from:* http://www.paramo.org/* http://miradadelince.wordpress.com/ * http://www.plataformasinc.es/

CREDITS