If I were you I would not get too close dad there is cyanide, and if you breathe ... "says a man about 55 years old, friendly and quiet look. Wearing a fluorescent yellow vest. It is an employee of Petaquilla Gold, which after the suspension of operations Molejón mine in Donoso, Colon Province, became one of the caretakers of the plant, abandoned since December 2013.
Since then, the gold mine has deteriorated so much that the visit is impossible to avoid thinking about an equally abandoned amusement park, but with conveyor belts hanging from side to side, cables and tubes of paint, rust, dust, water Standing gray, large mannequins machines, thousands of dollars in mining equipment and packaging cyanide in a warehouse.
There are two tubs quasi lagoons, one of 12 and another of 8 acres, filled with water up to its edges. They are tubs of tailings from the mine, and its content is another urgent issues be addressed by the Ministry of Environment, which will cost about $ 2.5 million, while deciding if the government takes away the award to the subsidiary company of the Petaquilla Canadian Gold, following financial failures that led to the abandonment and dangerous deterioration of the plant.
Also in payments of 608 employees, as the security who warned me of my closeness to cyanide. Since October 2014 they did not receive their wages or thirteenth month. The Ministry of Labor and Workforce Development estimates that the total amount owed is $ 8 million.
Does it work without pay?
If I give up ... I will not let my silver perish. My turn.
What cares?
There are people who steal copper cables and there are a lot of things.
Despite the situation, he looks cheerful and talkative. Uncertainty as (s) requires wait.
Maintenance
The amount of water stored tailings tubs, cone-shaped and whose deepest point is 20 meters, must be emptied by the danger posed by sediments, which Environment Ministry staff detected from six meters deep . It was determined that the volume to where the contaminants, which is evacuated rainwater.
This is then stored in the gold deposit, another huge pot with water only rain, which during the analysis of the Ministry of Environment sardines lethargy enjoy the area found. And probably the only millionaire of the marine world.
The company, which won the award in 1997, has not submitted the renewal of the environmental bond and performance bond.
"There are three urgent priorities notorious work: stabilizing the south dam, a tailings tubs, which was damaged by erosion and inclement weather; stabilization of slopes (walls) of the area of ??the site and the evacuation of water (tubs); and clean areas of the plant have oil pollution and chemical reagents, "says Yamil Sanchez, National Director of the Environmental Quality Protection Ministry.
Contamination referred to Sanchez is easily perceived in a portion of the plant, in which a floor blackish similar to that of gasoline odor is apparent. A few meters further back there is another tub-about 40 meters long and 15 wide- also filled with water. Five thousand millimeters of rain falling every year in the area and inactivity tub filled this emergency, which must remain empty to meet an untimely substance spill during operations.
Palliative work would take about four months to complete. This, as you know what happens to the concession. The goal continues Sánchez, is that a situation which is already serious is not serious. If its closure is enacted, it will be another study must prepare and perform other cleanup. The cost is about $ 30 million.
Funding for this maintenance will be managed through the National Assistance Program.
Deterioration
In January 2015, the Ministry of Trade and Industry informed him that Petaquilla Minerals not solve their financial problems would initiate the process to cancel the concession granted to the company by Law 9 of 1997. The agreement sets a deadline of six months to submit a mining plan maintenance activities of the plant and ensure its financial solvency.
On July 20 that period expired, and continued disagreement between the parties: Petaquilla presented a report detailing maintenance jobs already executed, but was rejected by the government.
The Ministry of Environment alleges that these works a permit is required by the sensitivity of the situation, which would unsolicited Petaquilla according to procedure. It also indicates that maintenance performed either meet environmental technical requirements.
While the future of the mine is decided by the resort does not spend more than the cool breeze caressing grasslands that take advantage of inactivity to recover its place in the red earth. In the distance, clouds rub against the mountains, giving a feeling of being thousands of meters high. It rains.
In the workshop of the plant, sitting in a chair beside a cracked machine asleep backhoe, mimics safety stillness. Just enjoy the abandonment sardines.
AI
