The Council of Girón says no to open mining in the Santurban Paramo

(Translated by Emily Ellis, a CSN Volunteer Translator. Edited by Teresa Welsh, CSN's Volunteer Editor.)

http://www.reclamecolombia.org

The Council of Girón asks the environmental authorities to not approve the environmental permit for the mining project for Greystar Resources and the others that are in the process of applying.

The reasons for the recommendation are related to the affectation of the volume of water available. The engineer, Germán Augusto Figuroas Galvis, former manager of Acueducto Metropolitano de Bucaramanga, said that "the project represents a real threat to the city's supply sources. For their negative affects about the quantity and quality of the water in the streams and complex marshes that supply the River Vetas Basin, an affluence of River Suratá, which is responsible for 17-50 percent of the potable water supply for more than 1 million inhabitants of Bucaramanga, Florida, and Girón, especially in dry periods, presented by climate change in severe phenomenons like El Niño."

"They shouldn't allow mining intervention, because of the area of the marshes, the alteration of the aquifers, the pollution from cyanide and residual heavy metals, the pollution from particular material resulting from explosions, the alteration of the countryside and destruction of soil, vegetation and fauna associated with great mining projects, that will also deteriorate the hydraulic resources of the zone of influence."

Likewise, the town council of Girón indicates that giving the environmental permit requested by Greystar Resources will violate Article 1, Numeral 5, General Environmental Principles of the Law 99 of 1993 that established the following: "In the use of the hydraulic resources, human consumption will have priority over any other use." This principle is ratified the 1729 decree of 2002 (Hydrographic Basins) that constitutes (article 4): "In the use of the hydraulic resources, human consumption will have priority over any other use."

This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

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