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COLOMBIA: The Gold Rush

By: Alfredo Molano Jimenez / Special Envoy

Santander, between progress and deforestation. Chronicle of gold mining in the mountains.

Photo: Gabriel Aponte

If granted the environmental permit, this is the last photo of heath.

Santurbán The Moor, the source of the water that feeds Bucaramanga and other areas of Santander, is facing a new challenge: large-scale mining, one of the locomotives that the government has announced.

The Serrania de Santurbán, in Santander, located in the center of the debate on the effects of mining in the country. What is the background is a struggle between the mining and energy development, embodied by President Santos as one of the locomotives of the economy, and natural wealth and biodiversity of Colombia. Two legitimate positions that are opposed and on which the President himself has referred to as the big question that the world is how to reconcile these two visions of the planet? The one suggested that despite the environmental effects are greater the benefit and progress, and one assumes that the irreversible damage caused by these projects will leave a desert country and shabby.
A few hours from Bucaramanga, by road that leads to Santander Norte de Santander, is the mountainous region of Santurbán, 92 thousand hectares, which is intertwined with the sky, a fog bank whence the water that feeds parts of the two departments. Gold mining there is an ancient practice. From colonial times, these mountains have been carved to get the precious mineral, but they refuse and keep inside. Only small quantities are expelled through the internal currents of the earth and end up in rivers that form at the foot of the mountain.
Since the mid-90's started the boom of the multinational mining. Many companies were they put the eye in Santander, among these the powerful Greystar Resources Ltd. A Canadian multinational which the International Finance Corporation (ICF, in English), World Bank agency that invests in private projects, is the largest shareholder, with 11 % and JP Morgan, one of the largest banks in the world.
In one of the peaks of these mountains, at 3,900 meters, the Greystar nailed the flag and baptized Angostura Project. Today, the company is expecting that the Environment Ministry granted the environmental license that would begin the operational phase, which lasted until 2025, but the environmental movement have cry to heaven and to the Attorney Alejandro Ordóñez, two days ago, presented his position, to ask the Ministry of Environment to consider not issue the license, despite the new mining code prohibited the mining of high mountains, this regulatory framework does not apply to the Angostura project, because when you gave there was no prohibition in this regard.

Angostura Project in 1994, reached Santurbán Greystar. On the slope, in the municipality of California-named probably seeking to replicate what was experienced United States in the 20 -, is the headquarters of the project. In this village municipality is home to more than 1,850 people, mostly engaged in mining. Here people support the company, all companies that have come in search of gold, which are more than five and its subcontractors pass from the ten companies.
The Greystar has acquired the mining rights over 30 hectares in the area, but the Angostura Project use only a thousand and in the process of exploration and is 15 years and have invested more than $ 100 million . According to the company in those thousand hectares is estimated that over 7.7 million ounces of gold -16 tonnes of gold annually, and nearly 80 million -72 ounces of silver tons annually, making this area one of the largest gold deposits in South America. But environmentalists warn that there are 100,000 times more arsenic than gold, and wonder where all that anger to stop toxic mineral. Environmental impact

"Nobody can deny that the extraction of gold, and this project specifically, has a strong environmental impact, but you have to weigh are the social and economic benefits offered by the mining industry," explains one of the engineers the Greystar.
For its part, the Committee for the Defence of Santurbán Paramo, consisting of associations environmentalists, unions, students, academics, Santander Society of Engineers, the Society of Public Improvements, Fenalco Santander and political parties like the Greens and the Democratic Pole, are opposing the project, arguing that there will be irreversible damage to water sources that nourish the metropolitan area. "The committee is not against mining projects, is against projects that affect present and future possibility of water for the metropolitan area and some populations and Norte de Santander department. We are proposing alternative development proposals for the region, "says Luis Carlos Estupiñán, one of committee members.
The project proposes to open a cut of 220 hectares with a depth of 200 meters at the top of the mountain, coming through the gold. In addition, there shall be two spaces for the treatment of toxic substances used in the mineral extraction process, one will have 110 hectares on the creek Angosturas, and the other 90 acres on the creek Páez. The two fall into the river gorges Surata. The company's engineers say there is no scientific possibility that leaks of toxic substances, as it tries to make a waterproofing technology.
The Greystar ensures that there will be no impact on water sources in the metropolitan area, because according to warnings, the river Surata represents a minimum rate of water entering Bucaramanga. But environmentalists insist that this river, in times of crisis, providing 70% of water consumed in the capital of the department.
According to figures presented by the environmental impact study of Greystar, the project will use 40 000 kilos of cyanide and 230 tons of ANFO per day.

social impact is no doubt that such projects benefit a large number of people. That the inhabitants of Surat, California and veins, to mention some of the centers where they live fever gold, are in favor of mining, open pit or in any way. Especially if you have benefited from some of the projects of social responsibility that mining companies often promote their areas of influence in some way to mitigate the impact caused by mining.
http://www.elespectador.com/ print / temadeldia / articuloimpreso-241 885-foot- of-gold-santurban