‘Live sick or flee’: pollution fears for El Salvador’s rivers as mining ban lifted
The landmark prohibition on mining in 2017, a world first, has been reversed by authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele but the move has met fierce resistance from environmentalistsVidalina Morales realised that something was wrong with the water where she lived in 2004. A toxic red stain spreading through the San Sebastián River in the department of Cabañas in El Salvador seemed to contaminate the environment and worried residents.As part of a campaign to protect her home and the environment, Morales, 54, visited mining projects near the river to learn about the risks the extractive sector posed. “I was shocked by the extent of the destruction of their environment,” she says. Continue reading...
Vidalina Morales realised that something was wrong with the water where she lived in 2004. A toxic red stain spreading through the San Sebastián River in the department of Cabañas in El Salvador seemed to contaminate the environment and worried residents.As part of a campaign to protect her home and the environment, Morales, 54, visited mining projects near the river to learn about the risks the extractive sector posed. “I was shocked by the extent of the destruction of their environment,” she says.Vidalina Morales has become the face of the fight against mining in El Salvador. Photograph: Rodrigo Sura/EPA-EFESince then, Morales has become the face of the fight against mining in El Salvador. Perhaps because she knew the power of the pro-mining lobby, she and her fellow resistance members celebrated only briefly when their country became the first in the world to ban metal mining in 2017. Deep down, she says, she knew the fight was far from over.Seven years later, her fears have been realised as mining has been reintroduced in El Salvador. On 23 December, its congress voted to overturn the ban on metals mining, a move championed by the hardline president, Nayib Bukele, who is prioritising economic growth over environmental concerns.The new legislation grants the government exclusive control over mining activities and prohibits the use of toxic mercury in gold extraction.However, despite the regulations, environmentalists have promised strong opposition, citing potential irreversible damage to ecosystems and public health. Other minerals released into the environment by gold-mining include arsenic, for instance.A protest outside congress in San Salvador, El Salvador, where the mining ban was overturned on 23 December. Photograph: Aphotografia/GettyCidia Cortes, an environmental biologist, says: “In the San Sebastián River, arsenic levels are 300 times higher than international safety standards. Acid drainage turns the water a poisonous red, contaminating water, air and land.”Despite El Salvador’s history of violence against human rights and environmental activists, as well as lawsuits brought by the state against them, Luis Parada, a 64-year-old former army officer who spoke out against the military’s notorious murder of Jesuit priests in 1989, headed the legal defence for the Salvadoran government when it was sued by mining corporations in 2009.The two lawsuits were filed by Commerce Group Corp and San Sebastián Gold Mines and by the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim, later bought by OceanaGold. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a World Bank tribunal, settled the first in the state’s favour in 2011 and dismissed Pacific Rim’s $250m claim in 2016.Parada says: “Winning both arbitrations was key for the mining ban. We won the last one in October 2016, and shortly after, in March 2017, the country had passed the law thanks to the momentum that the communities created after more than a decade fighting the mining industry.”Salvadoran protesters at congress in March 2017, when the mining ban was passed. Photograph: Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty ImagesBy that time, almost 80% of the population supported the mining ban. Luis González, director of an environmental pressure group, the Salvadoran Ecological Unit, believes the public still supports the ban.“Although there has been a political shift, I believe people still have clarity that mining is bad,” he says. “We can still pull together nationwide support to reject this measure.”Nayib Bukele calls El Salvador’s mining ban ‘absurd’. Photograph: José Cabezas/ReutersAlthough the metal mining ban was a landmark victory for the Central American environmental movement, the threat of “extractivism” was far from over. Just four years later, the government under the Bukele administration moved towards reversing the ban by joining the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, and eventually publicly embraced the idea.“We are the only country in the world with a total ban on metal mining, something that no other country applies. Absurd!” Bukele said on his X account last month. “This God-given wealth can be harnessed responsibly to bring unprecedented economic and social development to our people.”Early last year, the authoritarian Bukele’s administration targeted five environmental activists by accusing them of a crime committed in 1989 during the brutal civil war and of “illicit association”, a charge used in the government’s crackdown on organised crime. The detentions have been widely condemned as politically motivated.Bukele’s pro-mining rhetoric did not come as a surprise. “We have been warning since 2021 that mining interests were preying upon El Salvador, and this was confirmed when they jailed five of our environmental leaders back in January 2023,” says Morales.MPs of the ruling New Ideas party celebrate the ban’s repeal. Photograph: Rodrigo Sura/EPAAccording to Parada, the repeal of the mining law means that the two lawsuits and similar cases could be reopened. “Since the mining ban is reversed, the country could be lining up to receive lawsuits from defeated mining corporations, as they would claim what they think is theirs,” he says.Environmental pollution of watercourses is literally a matter of life and death for El Salvador. The Lempa is the country’s most significant river, supplying about 70% of drinking water for the San Salvador metropolitan area.Cortes fears that industrial mining could have a devastating effect on El Salvador’s water. “The Lempa River could disappear as we know it,” she says. “This river needs intensive care to survive agrochemicals, mining and stone extraction, as well as the four hydroelectric plants located within the watershed.”González also believes opening mining projects could lead to dire consequences. “People who already receive contaminated water will have even more polluted water,” he says. “Heavy metals will reach everything, from tap water to crops, meaning crops will either dry up or absorb these chemicals, causing health consequences.”A polluted river in Santa Rosa de Lima, El Salvador. Photograph: Camilo Freedman/The GuardianIn a recent press conference, Bukele queried whether people could drink water from the Lempa. “Who can drink water from a river here?” he asked, arguing that his government needed new revenue sources to provide people with clean tap water. “What we need is money to clean our rivers.”In October, El Salvador successfully completed the world’s largest debt conversion for river conservation, repurchasing $1bn (£800m) of its bonds at a discount and saving more than $352m. These savings will fund the Rio Lempa Conservation and Restoration Program over the next 20 years.There is a need to turn to protest … it is the only way they’ll listenThe initiative, supported by the US International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), includes $200m to fund the programme directly, while $150m will fund an endowment to finance it beyond 2044.“Those $200m would amount to a $9m yearly investment on the Lempa River for the next 20 years and could work to do conservation work of the body of water,” he says. “But it would be nowhere close to compensating the damage done by mining.”The costs to the environment from mining can be astronomical. According to a 2022 study by the Mexican Institute of Statistics and Geography, cleaning a tonne of soil contaminated with cyanide costs almost $200,000.“A water leak containing cyanide can cost millions to clean, and acid drainage would cost El Salvador millions of dollars for eternity,” says Andres McKinley, a researcher at El Salvador’s José Simeón Cañas Central American University. “This is a battle for water, the heart of the mining industry.”The river in Santa Rosa de Lima, with runoff from a mine. Photograph: Camilo Freedman/GuardianEnvironmentalists warn that mining poses an even greater risk in El Salvador because of the country’s small size. But Bukele does not agree. “Countries such as Qatar, with half our size, are rich because of extractivism,” he says.González says it is not only the size that puts the country at risk but “the fact that El Salvador is the most densely populated country in the Americas”. He points to the vastly different amounts of water available to Salvadorans compared with Canadians, for example, with the latter enjoying more than 40 times as much.Environmental activists such as Morales worry that the government-controlled congress and courts (after Bukele dismissed the country’s supreme court judges and attorney general) will make resisting the return of mining an uphill struggle but they believe it is a battle that needs to be fought.Parada says: “It’s highly unlikely that a Bukele-controlled court will rule against the government, so there is a need to turn to protest because it is the only way they’ll listen. People are speaking out on social media, and there will be street protests soon.”González fears that El Salvador will suffer an exodus of people caused by growing environmental pollution – aggravating the migratory crisis already under way in Central America.“Mining generates a huge social and environmental impact,” he says. “Many will risk being poisoned [and] living sick or having to flee their communities because of the heavy metals used by this industry.”
