from El Sol Ácrata N°31 (Abril, 2016) translated by Earth First! Journal For a couple of months now, the communities of Chiu Chiu and Calama have been fighting against the approval of the RT Sulfuros project, which would give the green light to the tailings dam [the physical structure that holds in, or impounds, the tailings pond, which serves the dual role of containing the ground-rock tailings from the ore-milling and separation process and recycling the water to be reused in processing] located in the high plateau salt flat of Talabre, converting the zone into a mega-mining industrial landfill. The project… seeks to expand the operating range of the reservoir, increasing the “sacrifice zone”–as brazenly called by some politicians–despite the disastrous environmental and social consequences that this brings to communities. Among the most immediate consequences is the irreparable damage to the water sources of the Loa river–aquifers which have been affected by underground filtration of contaminating elements, due to the impermeability of the reservoirs. The situation is gravely impacting the community of Chiuchiu where agriculture is the main mean of survival; this could lead to fragmentation of social relations, since it will be impossible to continue the ancestral customs of cultivating […]
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