16 In the State of Mining Concessions
For some, Concordia is the first rock avalanche of 16 mining concessions in the state have and intend to mine gold in the open, technically banned in Costa Rica and Germany about the risks of water pollution, the use of thousands of tons cyanide.
Another one of those mining in Baja California Sur is Patella Mining Company SA de CV, owned by U.S. company Argonaut Capital Gold, which scans an area of more than 46 hectares, beside the town of San Antonio.
“We’re changing a paradise, Baja California Sur, a wooded oasis in the desert in exchange for mirrors, gold-mining it generates few jobs and is highly polluting,” says Austin Bravo Gladiola Excelsior, representative of the Mexican Center Environmental Law in La Paz.
As of June 2009 there were 263 foreign mining projects in Mexico by 677, 64% correspond to the extraction of gold and silver. Eight percent operational phase and the other in exploration. 75% are Canadian companies, some registered in Canada with American capital, and 15% in the U.S., according to the Summary of Key Indicators of Mining 2009.
In Mexico, foreign mining companies do not pay a penny of their profits to the government, only disburse a tax of 5.08 pesos per hectare for extracting semi-metal-imposed the first two years, reaching the maximum pay is 111.27 pesos per hectare when they reach the eleventh year of the grant.
Biosphere Reserve
Getting to the Sierra la Laguna is a feat that can only be achieved aboard a 4×4 vehicle, there surprised it the giant cacti and cactus papaya and, hopefully, the frantic race for a runner.
The area is home to the only pine-oak forest of Baja California Sur, habitat of the coyote, cougar and 40 species of reptiles. In 1994 it was declared a biosphere reserve by the former President Carlos Salinas, and the decree prohibiting dumping toxic substances in soil or groundwater, and then there is the main aquifer in the state.
Nevertheless, in 1997 the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL)-responsible for the permits, granted the environmental clearance Escobar Company to exploit gold in the Sierra la Laguna, the Yellow Walls Mining project. The company also won the concession for the exploitation of the Directorate General of Mines, the Ministry of Economy.
“I had to review the Environmental Impact Assessment (MIA) that presented the mine in 1997 for the authorization, was head of the Office of Environmental Impact, what worried me was that the tailings dam-pool where you place toxic waste from the mine would be built 11 meters of the river and a flood could drag the debris, “said Mario Rodriguez.
A report on the risk, however, the then Office of Environmental Impact authorized the mining project “was a project authorized by steam,” he complained. But in the late 90′s, a fall in gold prices made Escobar leave the country and sold its mining concession Yellow Walls, the company Vista Gold.