- Canadian mining company Cordoba Minerals and the Chinese JCHX Mining Management Co. are getting closer to opening the Alacrán mine, located in Puerto Libertador, in Colombia’s Córdoba department, rich with gold, silver and copper.
- The area has been the site of artisanal, illegal and industrial mining for decades, resulting in deforestation and the pollution of local water bodies.
- Critics of Alacrán say the operation will only exacerbate problems in the area, and called on the government to hold mining companies accountable for harmful practices.
Permits granted for the construction of an industrial mining project in northern Colombia are raising concerns among residents and conservationists, who say they might lose their food and drinking water to unregulated pollution, causing them to relocate to other parts of the country.
Canadian mining company Cordoba Minerals won a construction permit last month for the $420.4 million Alacrán mining project, which will extract gold, silver and copper by early next year. While the deal would make it one of the biggest mines in the country, with significant economic benefits, the project could also increase environmental damage and uproot communities in an area that already has a long list of problems, critics say.
“El Alacrán is a populated center where more than 300 families have lived all their lives,” Juan Velásquez Ruiz, a resident who’s been mining there for decades, told Mongabay. “We want the government to intervene and really support us. We don’t have any support.”
Alacrán mine, located in Puerto Libertador, in the Córdoba department, is part of a 30-year mining title on around 22,000 hectares (54,363 acres). The larger land package where Alacrán mine is located, called San Matias, is still mostly in the exploration phase, according to the company.
The operation is expected to extract 417,300 tons of copper, 724,500 ounces of gold and 5,930,000 ounces of silver annually from an open pit. It’s being developed jointly with the Chinese JCHX Mining Management Co.
The area has abundant deposits of nickel, gold, coal, copper, silver, platinum and limestone. Traditionally, mining has been small-scale and artisanal, as it’s occupied by Zenú and Emberá Katío Indigenous people. But a boom starting in the 1980s brought in heavy machinery and more advanced extraction methods, partly at the hands of interested guerrilla, paramilitary and drug trafficking groups.
Industrial mining started on the San Matias site in the late 1980s but wasn’t obtained by Cordoba Minerals until 2015. The company optioned the Alacrán site in 2020, with an independent preliminary feasibility study finished in 2022. The company predicts that the mine will generate $190.4 million in government royalty revenue and $514.2 million in income tax revenue to support “government and social programs in Colombia and local communities.”
Nevertheless, residents are concerned that the environmental and social impacts could do more harm than good in the long run.
Backhoes and other large equipment have accelerated deforestation in the area, resulting in a decrease in local tree species like Colombian mahogany (Cariniana pyriformis), according to a report from the Center for Research and Popular Education Program for Peace. Mining operations have also diverted rivers and streams and dumped mercury, critical to the extraction process, back into the water. As a result, populations of several species of fish, such as bocachico (Prochilodus magdalenae), have started to decline, threatening the livelihood of local fishermen.
Without clean water and food, residents will have to eventually relocate, some critics of the mining industry believe.
“These communities are going to disappear and they’re going to disappear with very few resources,” said Adadier Perdomo Urquina, a human rights defender in the area.
Starting in 2015, several legal cases — including a class action lawsuit and popular action — have claimed that the Alacrán mine violates the rights of Indigenous and traditional mining communities.
Traditional, small-scale miners of all kinds have special constitutional protection and the state has an obligation to reduce “harmful effects of material quality,” in part by providing legal assistance to them, one lawsuit said. Mining contracts also can’t be granted within a populated area like Puerto Libertador, which has approximately 300 families, or result in their displacement.
The lawsuits claim an adequate prior consultation wasn’t carried out with residents to inform them of who had the right to mine the area and how it would impact their communities.
“Mineral extraction alters the soil, which is an element of identity for these communities, and causes the social, religious, political and customary disintegration of the people,” one lawsuit said. “In addition, mining activity can cause serious health problems due to the use of heavy infrastructure and toxic materials, generating contamination of water sources and erosion of the native forest.”
Cordoba Minerals didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
The cases are all still ongoing, and aim to either pause or nullify the government’s approval of the mine’s operation.
In the meantime, some residents and activists continue to speak out against mining development in the area. But they also find it hard to go up against the national government and powerful international mining companies, not to mention criminal groups. It leaves the future of the area uncertain, they said.
“All these elements are like a pack of hyenas,” Perdomo Urquina said. “They’re attacking a defenseless town, a poor town. Some say the town doesn’t have much hope left.”
Banner image: The Puerto Libertador municipality. Photo courtesy of Ocha Colombia/Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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