Post by account_disabled on Mar 10, 2024 0:23:08 GMT -5
Grupo México's reputation is getting worse. In recent years it has suffered several incidents causing environmental damage around its mining complexes.
This has had serious consequences, especially in communities around the damaged places.
An example is what happens in the town France Mobile Number List located on the banks of the Bacanuchi and Sonora rivers. There it was customary to drink water directly from the tap, but after the Grupo México incident, this is no longer the case.
“I came home and turned to the faucet, it was drinking water, from the wells, it tasted good, fresh. Here we didn't even know about jugs,” says Óscar Encinas, a resident of the municipality of Ures.
Now each family must buy almost 10 jugs per week. “We spend about 960 pesos a fortnight, minimum. But we not only use that water for drinking, but also for cooking. "My wife no longer even cooks beans with the key, she makes us distrustful."
According to Animal Político , the people who live in the area have changed their habits since 2014. In that area, right at the Buenavista del Cobre mine, Grupo México stored toxic waste: 40 million liters of copper sulfate solution.
These toxins are equivalent to that of 12 completely full Olympic swimming pools. The spill was classified as the worst environmental disaster in the history of the mining industry in Mexico.
The most affected, which have been recognized by both Grupo México and the government, were more than 22 thousand people from seven municipalities:
Arizpe, Banámichi, Huépac, Aconchi, San Felipe, Baviácora and Ures.
But the number could be higher, up to a million people, if the contamination reached the El Molinito Dam, which in turn connects with the Abelardo L. Rodríguez Dam: the main source of water for Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora.
After the spill, those affected demand a solution, since since that date they have been forced to buy water at a very high cost.
“As part of the damage remediation, Grupo México was supposed to install 36 water purification plants, one in each affected town. They put a few in and they don't work,” says Elba Nidia Hurtado, a resident of El Sauz, also in Ures, Sonora.