AP Photo/Martin Mejia
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The worst toxic spill in Peru's mining history occurred four months ago when a mining company's tailings dam collapsed. A debate has since ensued, not between local populations or the government and Caudalosa, the company that owns the mine, but among local residents.
Some residents are angry because they are drinking polluted water and want the mine closed at least until an appropriate cleanup is done, while others are equally angry that they have no jobs to go to, and thus no income.
IPS reports both sides of the story well:
Mine workers and their families demonstrated in Huancavelica Oct. 18 and 19, calling for the reopening of the mine...
Héctor Sotacuro, organising secretary of the mineworkers' union, told IPS they are considering marching on Lima this month, because they have received no pay at all since September. "If we can't work, what are we supposed to live on?" he asked."We are still drinking this polluted water and our children could get ill," Julián Marcas, who lives in Santa Rosa de Tincuy, told IPS. Unlike other communities in the area that draw water from springs, the only source of water in Santa Rosa is the Urubamba river, polluted by the spill.
It's a specific example of the ongoing economics-vs-environment debate, but in Peru, like elsewhere, it's a false dichotomy.
A healthy environment means a healthy future, and a community can make few advances when it is battling things like arsenic and cadmium in its water, and a dwindling food supply because trout in the river are dying from the pollution—all things that have been observed since the spill.
It's not that sustainable development doesn't exist—it does in several areas. It, along with reducing consumption (and demand for the resources extracted from mines) just needs to be stronger, in Peru like everywhere else.
More on mining and the environment in South America:
Indian Tribals & Native Americans Both at Center of New Mining Conflict
City in Peru Being Eaten By Open-Pit Mine
Global Greengrants Fund: Where Green Ideas, from Sustainable Agriculture to Mine Restoration, Sprout Around the World
