The Legislature of the province of Chubut approved this Wednesday night in Rawson by majority the productive diversification project for the Central Plateau that includes carrying out a mining zoning in the departments Telsen and Gastre and without the use of cyanide, according to the newspaper El Chubut , in his web page.
The project had been sent by the Government last year and had a Commission opinion, although it had never been discussed in the Chamber.
After a special session where the applicants presented to the Superior Court of Justice, an ordinary session was called in which the initiative for the mining activity was incorporated into the Agenda.
At the end of the substantiation of several of the legislators present, the project was approved by 14 votes to 11.
Mining zoning was contemplated in Law 5001 that prohibited the activity with the use of cyanide and open sky in the rest of the province.
But the map where the activity would be concentrated had never been finalized and was approved after 18 years.
The zoning project that had a favorable opinion since March, It defines the Telsen and Gastre departments as the places to develop mining activity in the province without the use of cyanide.
What was approved this Wednesday in the Legislature keeps Law 5001 in force and comes to comply with one of its articles that provided precisely for zoning.
The official initiative will allow the mining of silver, copper and lead, in some areas of the province, like Telsen and Gastre, and is actively resisted by a good part of the Chubut social movements.
The reporting member and who closed the debate was the deputy of the Frente de Todos Carlos Eliceche, president of the Economic Development, Environment and Natural Resources commission, who stated that the initiative responds “to a request from President Alberto Fernández for mining to develop and exist investments”.
“Enough of postponement for the interior of the province, which deserves to have the same opportunities as the rest of the cities,” said Eliceche who also valued “the push that Governor Mariano Arcioni put on the initiative.”
After a brief debate, a roll call vote was held where the bill was approved with the support of the majority of the deputies belonging to the union sector such as Oil Workers, Commercial Employees and Truckers, in addition to the official bloc.
While the discussion was taking place in the compound – which was not expected for this Wednesday but for Thursday – the anti-mining protesters began to gather in front of the legislature based on Miter Street in Rawson, the capital of Chubut, to express their rejection to the initiative, which led to some skirmishes that were dispersed by the police.
The demonstrations continued this Wednesday night and the institutional definition is awaited as it remains for Governor Mariano Arcioni to promulgate the law.
Those who oppose the exploitation project of the Navidad project, whose only interested party is the Canadian mining company Pan American Silver, argue that the company will use a method other than cyanide but no less harmful: xanthate.
Pan American Silver owns 100% of the Navidad project, one of the undeveloped silver deposits biggest in the world.
The project was acquired in 2010 through the purchase of Aquiline Resources Inc. and the Navidad properties are located in the north-central province of Chubut.
To date, the Navidad project comprises eight individual mineral deposits in three mineralized lineaments. (Christmas, Esperanza and Argenta).
The six deposits in the Navidad lineation span 5.8 kilometers and are essentially continuous.
Estimated mineral resources were completed for eight of these deposits.
