21,000 acres of land sells for $19 in the Andes Mountains surrounding Pascua Lama. At least, that was the value placed on a tract of land Barrick recently purchased from Chilean Rodolfo Villar. Villar had intended to sell the land to Barrick for much more but the contract he signed (without reviewing) via his lawyer quoted the $19 sale price. Oddly, Villar's lawyer sold a smaller piece of land to Barrick for $650,000, according to The New York Times.
Villar, now with a new team of lawyers from Santiago, is battling Barrick in appeals courts after winning his initial lawsuit returning land title to his name. He intends to revisit the negotiating table, asking no less than $100 million for the land.
The plot in question forms an irregular, blocky "U" around the Pascua Lama protocol area and includes the central road Barrick has constructed to access the site from the San Felix Valley.
Barrick claims Villar is waging a "nuisance case" against their company. Rod Jimenez, Director of South American Operations, could not speak directly to the case since it is still in progress, but in an interview in his Santiago office, he was confident there would be no negative effects on the project.
I asked Rod if the Pascua Lama access road bisects the land in question. Rod responded ambiguously, simply stating that the lawsuit would not affect the Pascua Lama development. With investors chomping at the bit to see an $18 billion potential become mine output, it's no wonder Barrick is trying to wrap this case up as quickly as possible. But it might not be that easy.
Although a Barrick director discouraged us from believing the press, we feel The New York Times and Washington Post have an obligation to present facts in their reporting. See the following links for full stories...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/world/americas/30chile.html?ex=1311912000&en=6fcf9bbf82edb5e6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/25/AR2006122500457_pf.html
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Watered -Down Democracy
"The Water Users Cooperative, representing 2,000 farmers of the Huasco Valley, is fully supportive of the project. Chile is a democratic country and the media play an important role in the public discussion of the community concerns and interests. There has already been an extensive and open discussion of issues including the participation of farmers."
That was taken directly from the Barrick website in response to a chain email Barrick deems misleading. The Water Users Cooperative is also known as the Junta de Vigilancia. A few things should be known about the Junta, especially when it is used in the same paragraph as "democracy."
Yes, the Junta represents the 2,000 farmers with water rights in the Huasco Valley. No, they do not fully support the project, according to their Director with whom we spoke in Vallenar on January 29th. Rather, once it got approval from the government they wanted to monitor the project as much as possible.
The Junta formed after the Pascua Lama project had long been in development. After the mine was approved, the Junta agreed to work with Barrick on a water treatment study and to oversee the approval of the protection devices planned for the mine. Barrick also agreed to pay the Junta $60 million dollars over 20 years: $3 million a year deposited into the Junta bank account. The Junta signed off on the Barrick plans.
The Junta offers a unique take on democracy. The 2,000 members of the Junta share 12,000 acciones. Acciones represent the water rights for each farmer. One accion equals one hour of water usage. One accion costs roughly $2,000, though prices vary in different places. Acciones are limited to available water on each members' land, but acciones can be bought and sold between members. Therefore, in a community dominated by a handful of prominent agricultural industrialists producing grapes and olives (further west toward the coast), the acciones tend to collect in the hands of the landed wealthy.
One accion also equals one vote and the Junta elects its own nine-person officials. The resulting board of directors for the Junta represents the most influential, powerful, accion-rich members. They are supposed to speak for the remaining small farmers, many of whom have 1/2 to 1 accion for their family-sized, self-supporting avocado, grape, or mango farms.
Votes can literally be bought in this form of small-town democracy.
Many locals wonder what $60 million can buy.
That was taken directly from the Barrick website in response to a chain email Barrick deems misleading. The Water Users Cooperative is also known as the Junta de Vigilancia. A few things should be known about the Junta, especially when it is used in the same paragraph as "democracy."
Yes, the Junta represents the 2,000 farmers with water rights in the Huasco Valley. No, they do not fully support the project, according to their Director with whom we spoke in Vallenar on January 29th. Rather, once it got approval from the government they wanted to monitor the project as much as possible.
The Junta formed after the Pascua Lama project had long been in development. After the mine was approved, the Junta agreed to work with Barrick on a water treatment study and to oversee the approval of the protection devices planned for the mine. Barrick also agreed to pay the Junta $60 million dollars over 20 years: $3 million a year deposited into the Junta bank account. The Junta signed off on the Barrick plans.
The Junta offers a unique take on democracy. The 2,000 members of the Junta share 12,000 acciones. Acciones represent the water rights for each farmer. One accion equals one hour of water usage. One accion costs roughly $2,000, though prices vary in different places. Acciones are limited to available water on each members' land, but acciones can be bought and sold between members. Therefore, in a community dominated by a handful of prominent agricultural industrialists producing grapes and olives (further west toward the coast), the acciones tend to collect in the hands of the landed wealthy.
One accion also equals one vote and the Junta elects its own nine-person officials. The resulting board of directors for the Junta represents the most influential, powerful, accion-rich members. They are supposed to speak for the remaining small farmers, many of whom have 1/2 to 1 accion for their family-sized, self-supporting avocado, grape, or mango farms.
Votes can literally be bought in this form of small-town democracy.
Many locals wonder what $60 million can buy.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Barrick's Plan
"In over forty years I have never put as much environmental protection into a project as I've put into this one."
Ron Kettles, Pascua Lama's director of operations, told us this as we sat down with him in his La Serena office. Kettles is a mining veteran and he has the stout, strong build and direct, no-nonsense demeanor to match. Ron believes in Pascua Lama and insists on its effectiveness. He says he came out of retirement to lead this project because of the dynamic challenges it posed due to its elevation and cross-border location. He also appreciates Barrick's committment to the environment and community, exemplified by their recent closure of the El Indio mine in a southerly valley.
For over an hour Ron walked us through Pascua Lama's plan according to a topographic map on his desk. The plan calls for five layers of protection in the waste pits and leaching pond. Surficial water from the glaciers surrounding the pit will be redirected via canals to join the free-flowing Estrecho River below the mine site. A water treatment facility will treat the naturally acidic water and recycled mine water for reuse in the operations. This water treatment process will, according to Ron, "stay in operation in perpetuity, if necessary." It must be noted that that perpetuity begins over 25 years from now, long after current Barrick officials have retired or moved on. The glaciers will not be touched, according to Ron, although he says their water studies show that the ice in the three glaciers accounts for less than .5% of the water supply. Glaciologists argue that such percentages are hard to rationalize since the ecosystems in these high-altitude environments are very complex and sensitively balanced.
"If anything's, there's probably a slight improvement to the water quality and quantity," Ron said.
He quotes some numbers of water usage. The mine will use only 45 liters/sec during peak operation though they have rights to 200 liters/sec in accordance with their "acciones" in the Junta de Vigilancia. Ron states that 5,800 liters/sec enters the Santa Juana Reservoir, the main body of water collected to fund the Huasco Valley. That number has been disputed by the Junta, however, who's director says there is a fluctuation of 1,000 to 2,000 liters/sec entering the reservoir and between 2,000 and 5,000 liters/sec leaving the reservoir. Only during the peak runoff months from September to December does the reservoir yield between 3,000-5,000 liters/sec. Most of the year it hovers at 2,000.
As for waste material, Ron says the mine will move 45,000 tons/day. Waste rock will be placed in stock piles with membrane linings to control leaching of dangerous material. Ron is especially proud of the tailings pond dam on the Argentina side of the mine where the cyanide treatment plant will live. Unlike similar dams, this one will be built of separate rock, not the tailings themselves. This, ideally, will act as yet another barrier to leaking. A nearby reclaimed water pond will be 1 km from the dam and all has been seismically tested to withstand catastrophic geologic events.
Ron emphasizes this importance, "There will be no possibility of contaminated material getting past the dam. There will be zero environmental impact effect."
The cyanide will arrive in trucks via the San Felix valley road that leaves out of Alto del Carmen. Truck spills are a major concern with mines, especially since the mountainous road is extremely curvy (see http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/gold/spills.htm for a recent timeline of spills in world mines). It also passes directly above the north shore of the Santa Juana Reservoir. Ron says two convoys of 20 trucks will travel the road each day during operation. That's 40 trucks a day every day for twenty years. Barrick's emergency response plan involves GPS satellite surveillance, though a cyanide spill into a river or, worse, the reservoir, spreads rapidly.
Ron's pride in this mine is obvious - it is far more advanced than any mine he or Barrick has done in the past, including the year-old Veladero mine 7 km south of Pascua Lama in Argentina.
So why such dramatic improvements with Pascua Lama; why has Barrick gone to such length on this one?
"The emotional opposition has motivated us," Ron said.
(Barrick has a very capable public relations team so further technical information on this and other mines can be found at www.barrick.com)
Ron Kettles, Pascua Lama's director of operations, told us this as we sat down with him in his La Serena office. Kettles is a mining veteran and he has the stout, strong build and direct, no-nonsense demeanor to match. Ron believes in Pascua Lama and insists on its effectiveness. He says he came out of retirement to lead this project because of the dynamic challenges it posed due to its elevation and cross-border location. He also appreciates Barrick's committment to the environment and community, exemplified by their recent closure of the El Indio mine in a southerly valley.
For over an hour Ron walked us through Pascua Lama's plan according to a topographic map on his desk. The plan calls for five layers of protection in the waste pits and leaching pond. Surficial water from the glaciers surrounding the pit will be redirected via canals to join the free-flowing Estrecho River below the mine site. A water treatment facility will treat the naturally acidic water and recycled mine water for reuse in the operations. This water treatment process will, according to Ron, "stay in operation in perpetuity, if necessary." It must be noted that that perpetuity begins over 25 years from now, long after current Barrick officials have retired or moved on. The glaciers will not be touched, according to Ron, although he says their water studies show that the ice in the three glaciers accounts for less than .5% of the water supply. Glaciologists argue that such percentages are hard to rationalize since the ecosystems in these high-altitude environments are very complex and sensitively balanced.
"If anything's, there's probably a slight improvement to the water quality and quantity," Ron said.
He quotes some numbers of water usage. The mine will use only 45 liters/sec during peak operation though they have rights to 200 liters/sec in accordance with their "acciones" in the Junta de Vigilancia. Ron states that 5,800 liters/sec enters the Santa Juana Reservoir, the main body of water collected to fund the Huasco Valley. That number has been disputed by the Junta, however, who's director says there is a fluctuation of 1,000 to 2,000 liters/sec entering the reservoir and between 2,000 and 5,000 liters/sec leaving the reservoir. Only during the peak runoff months from September to December does the reservoir yield between 3,000-5,000 liters/sec. Most of the year it hovers at 2,000.
As for waste material, Ron says the mine will move 45,000 tons/day. Waste rock will be placed in stock piles with membrane linings to control leaching of dangerous material. Ron is especially proud of the tailings pond dam on the Argentina side of the mine where the cyanide treatment plant will live. Unlike similar dams, this one will be built of separate rock, not the tailings themselves. This, ideally, will act as yet another barrier to leaking. A nearby reclaimed water pond will be 1 km from the dam and all has been seismically tested to withstand catastrophic geologic events.
Ron emphasizes this importance, "There will be no possibility of contaminated material getting past the dam. There will be zero environmental impact effect."
The cyanide will arrive in trucks via the San Felix valley road that leaves out of Alto del Carmen. Truck spills are a major concern with mines, especially since the mountainous road is extremely curvy (see http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/gold/spills.htm for a recent timeline of spills in world mines). It also passes directly above the north shore of the Santa Juana Reservoir. Ron says two convoys of 20 trucks will travel the road each day during operation. That's 40 trucks a day every day for twenty years. Barrick's emergency response plan involves GPS satellite surveillance, though a cyanide spill into a river or, worse, the reservoir, spreads rapidly.
Ron's pride in this mine is obvious - it is far more advanced than any mine he or Barrick has done in the past, including the year-old Veladero mine 7 km south of Pascua Lama in Argentina.
So why such dramatic improvements with Pascua Lama; why has Barrick gone to such length on this one?
"The emotional opposition has motivated us," Ron said.
(Barrick has a very capable public relations team so further technical information on this and other mines can be found at www.barrick.com)
Diaguita: Indigenous Culture
Anna Huanchequay runs a newspaper and candy kiosk in Alto del Carmen. The blue metal box big enough for a six-pack of telephone booths opens its front window in the mornings and late afternoon each day. From inside, Anna looks down a quiet, paved street of Alto toward the horizontally layered ridge that separates her valley, the San Felix, from the Transito Valley. The two main rivers of this controversy meet just around the corner. Anna's position as liason between the Diaguita people and Barrick has not been such a smooth confluence.
When we met with Ron Kettles, Barrick's director of Pascua Lama, he discussed fair-and-balanced reporting and the dangers of misrepresenting the facts. Up until that point our blog had reported on encounters with valley residents. Sergio Campusano had been our main contact but from there we canvassed random homes in two different communities. Everyone we met but one - a bartender who hoped for increased commerce - feared the mine and wished it would go away. But our interactions with Sergio concerned Ron:
"He (Sergio) doesn't have an ounce of Diaguita blood in him," Ron said. "And neither does his wife. Sergio represents the Huascoaltino farming cooperative. He's looking after his own personal financial interests. You need to understand the politics and speak to the people involved."
Ron continued to explain that the Diaguita recently became an indigenous culture:
"The 'Diaguita' people were not even recognized by the Chilean government. With the new government they magically recognized the Diaguita as a people. Magically, they became an indigenous group because a (governmental) minister is Diaguita. Previously, we recognized them simply as part of the community."
Later, Barrick's anthropologist reiterated the freshness of the Diaguita's indigenous status. He went on to state that the indigenous status brings benefits to a community. From his perspective it seems everyone suddenly wants to be indigenous whereas years ago the term was avoided as a social stigma. He feels people are playing the indigenous card in order to gain influence especially since anyone living in the valley, regardless of heritage, can claim Diaguita status. In this case, Sergio could be a legitimate Diaguita.
Perhaps the distinction - Diaguita or not - matters because the official Diaguita group of the valley, led by Anna Huanchequay, is in favor of the mine. Barrick has been sponsoring classes in native traditions like pottery and cooking. They have also paid for a bus to take Diaguita to Santiago for a meeting, a move many locals question as an easy avenue to encourage favor from this suddenly influential group.
It's difficult to discern the fair from the imbalanced when a group of small farmers and a man who grows avocados and mangos out of a small house are portrayed as self-serving, manipulative forces wrenching influence from the hands of others. Yet two separate groups - the Diaguita led by Anna and the Junta de Vigilancia (more on them later) - who have approved of the mine are clear of such charges. So Ron recommended we speak with Anna Huanchequay, "one of the people involved."
We spoke with Anna in her kiosk. She was apprehensive at first and seemed worn down from trying to decipher people's motives. This Pascua Lama topic has obviously taken its toll on her. Once convinced we weren't working with Barrick, she began talking. Anna claims the Diaguita never supported the mine but since it gained approval from the government they had fought to keep the glaciers safe. Recently, however, according to Anna, a town representative had been to the mine and reported that the glaciers had been manipulated by Barrick. Now, Anna says they await a response to a formal letter sent to President Bachelet. Ultimately, they want further discussion on mine activity and their claim to land title. This is what Anna told us. We have it on tape. She also said Barrick offered her money and she refused. She's tired and everyone seems to have a different story about where she and the Diaguita she represents stand.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Divide and Conquer
Regardless of your "side" in this debate over mine or no mine, it is undeniable that a chasm has been cut through the Huasco Valley community of 70,000 inhabitants. We focused our inquiry on the opinions and interests of townspeople closest to the mine. While the residents of Vallenar, the biggest city in the watershed, have strong opinions, the small farmers and business people of the towns directly below the Pascua Lama site (Chollay, Conay, Alto del Carmen, San Felix, Los Perales, La Pampa, El Transito, etc) have a closer connection to the water: it flows through their backyards in canals and they open small gates each day to allow it into their fields. They are closely connected to the source.
A common and very effective practice among major extraction companies when gaining the all-necessary community support is to divide and conquer. Sure, that term makes it sound like a Visigoth raid, but the literal accuracy retains value. From our many discussions with all types of valley residents we heard the same distrusting undertone: those people who are in favor of the project have benefited in some way from the company. Stories abound about households receiving an ice-cream maker or a telephone or computer after attending a town meeting with the company. These tales might be sensational urban legend with no basis to legitimize the claims.
In Alto del Carmen, the biggest town in the Transito and del Carmen Valleys, Barrick has an office with 2-3 full-time staff. We met with Carlos, a resident of San Felix and now an employee of the company. Carlos spoke in length about the community programs Barrick has and will continue to offer in the area. He described the cooking and pottery classes that teach local people traditional Diaguita customs. (No one we met had attended a class and many scoffed at the idea that learning pottery could be considered a benefit from a multi-billion dollar project.) He described the training and scholarship programs Barrick sponsors to encourage local employment at the mine. When asked about the handouts of gifts, what locals call "Coima" for corruption, Carlos chuckled and described an instance in which the company bought a specilized walker for a young boy with a muscular problem, asking if that was "coima." He then insisted on Barrick's strict policy of not giving money to, say, a school that formally requested a computer. Rather, Barrick buys a computer and gives it to the school once it finds the request valid. However, this policy of giving only services and materials, not money, apparently does not extend to larger sums of money. The Junta de Vigilancia, Huasco Valley's water regulatory committee made up of elected locals and water users, negotiated with Barrick to ensure a safe water protection system at the mine. They also secured a $60 million contract with Barrick for water improvements within the Huasco Valley. The sum is being paid out in $3 million increments each year for 20 years and managed by the nine-member committee (more on the Junta later). The 2006 payment, according to the director of the Junta, is currently awaiting allocation in the committee's bank account. In cash.
This he-said-she-said ping-pong match of local accusations versus company policies never ceases. It's easy to understand how years of such ambiguousness and contradiction can lead a person to become mistrustful of everyone.
Anna Huanchequay, president of the local Diaguita people, seems to be taking the brunt of that confusion...
A common and very effective practice among major extraction companies when gaining the all-necessary community support is to divide and conquer. Sure, that term makes it sound like a Visigoth raid, but the literal accuracy retains value. From our many discussions with all types of valley residents we heard the same distrusting undertone: those people who are in favor of the project have benefited in some way from the company. Stories abound about households receiving an ice-cream maker or a telephone or computer after attending a town meeting with the company. These tales might be sensational urban legend with no basis to legitimize the claims.
In Alto del Carmen, the biggest town in the Transito and del Carmen Valleys, Barrick has an office with 2-3 full-time staff. We met with Carlos, a resident of San Felix and now an employee of the company. Carlos spoke in length about the community programs Barrick has and will continue to offer in the area. He described the cooking and pottery classes that teach local people traditional Diaguita customs. (No one we met had attended a class and many scoffed at the idea that learning pottery could be considered a benefit from a multi-billion dollar project.) He described the training and scholarship programs Barrick sponsors to encourage local employment at the mine. When asked about the handouts of gifts, what locals call "Coima" for corruption, Carlos chuckled and described an instance in which the company bought a specilized walker for a young boy with a muscular problem, asking if that was "coima." He then insisted on Barrick's strict policy of not giving money to, say, a school that formally requested a computer. Rather, Barrick buys a computer and gives it to the school once it finds the request valid. However, this policy of giving only services and materials, not money, apparently does not extend to larger sums of money. The Junta de Vigilancia, Huasco Valley's water regulatory committee made up of elected locals and water users, negotiated with Barrick to ensure a safe water protection system at the mine. They also secured a $60 million contract with Barrick for water improvements within the Huasco Valley. The sum is being paid out in $3 million increments each year for 20 years and managed by the nine-member committee (more on the Junta later). The 2006 payment, according to the director of the Junta, is currently awaiting allocation in the committee's bank account. In cash.
This he-said-she-said ping-pong match of local accusations versus company policies never ceases. It's easy to understand how years of such ambiguousness and contradiction can lead a person to become mistrustful of everyone.
Anna Huanchequay, president of the local Diaguita people, seems to be taking the brunt of that confusion...
Friday, February 2, 2007
Pachuy Photos
The four pictures below show scenes from our three-day trip on horseback up the Pachuy River canyon. The portrait of Miguel, our guide, and Michael's horse show the upper pastures of the Pachuy Valley. From here we were only a few thousand feet below the Andes crest and the border with Argentina. The second image shows a road cut by Barrick's exploration team to access the Valeriano project, another potential mine site in this lucrative gold belt. The final shot shows the same road a few thousand feet higher. The mountains in the background will become an open-pit mine if Barrick's Pachuy project moves forward. Miguel has seen encampments of exploration teams and heavy machinery in this valley.
Basically, if the wildest dreams of Barrick and Xstrata, a Swiss company exploring the Morro mine area, come true, every major upper watershed basin in the Transito Valley will have a mine.
Remember, at most, 5 grams of gold per ton of moved mountain. The average blueberry weighs over 2 grams. That's two blueberries of gold for a ton of mountain. If that makes you look twice at your gold bracelet, go to www.nodirtygold.org and look for retailers that sell recycled or scrap gold. www.brilliantearth.com is one such source.
Basically, if the wildest dreams of Barrick and Xstrata, a Swiss company exploring the Morro mine area, come true, every major upper watershed basin in the Transito Valley will have a mine.
Remember, at most, 5 grams of gold per ton of moved mountain. The average blueberry weighs over 2 grams. That's two blueberries of gold for a ton of mountain. If that makes you look twice at your gold bracelet, go to www.nodirtygold.org and look for retailers that sell recycled or scrap gold. www.brilliantearth.com is one such source.
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