What is said and what is reality. March 16th 2020 https://hablemosdemineria.com/2020/03/la-realidad-agua-bucaramanga-minesa/
Several comments and speeches of all kinds have been known regarding the Soto Norte Project led by the Minesa company in the department of Santander. Most of them focused on the issue of damage to the region's water sources. For this reason, from Hablemos de Minera we collected 3 topics that are discussed in front of the project and we contrast them with the vision of experts.
1. WHAT THEY SAY
"The Soto Norte Project will be within the Pramo de Santurbn and will affect the different ecosystems around it"
REALITY
On June 27, 2018, the Paramo law was approved in an extraordinary session of the Senate, which established guidelines that promote the integrity, preservation and restoration of these ecosystems, for this reason, it flatly prohibited the extraction of minerals and hydrocarbon operations at these sites.
According to the delimitation that was made in 2014 of the Pramo de Santurbn endorsed by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and the Von Humboldt Institute, the pramo is located at a height of around 3,100 meters above sea level (masl), the closest point to the Soto Norte project has a maximum altitude of 2,640 masl and the processing plant is located at 2,200 masl; that is to say that the Soto Norte Project is proposed at 460 meters above the current limit of the paramo.
In this regard, Hernando Garca, director of the Alexander Von Humbolt Institute, assures that the Project is not within the Pramo reference area.
2. WHAT THEY SAY
"The project will affect the quantity and quality of the water that supplies the Bucaramanga aqueduct, and in 10 years around 600 thousand inhabitants will not have this liquid"
REALITY
“All the water that we use in the mine and in the beneficiation process comes from underground sources; it is water that infiltrates into the tunnels, we use that same water and deliver it treated again to the water sources. ” affirmed the geologist, Alfonso Palacios.
As part of the Environmental Impact Study, the company guarantees that the project will have 5 water treatment plants that will return the resource to the river in better conditions than the one captured and adds that the water storage system will be provided with pumps to the re-circulation of 90% of the water used to benefit the mineral.
ERM Hydrogeologist, Csar Rodrguez, who is part of the EIA audit firm, affirms that Minesa's hydrological model is unique in the country and has the highest quality standards.
3. WHAT THEY SAY
"Minesa will build many gigantic tunnels that will damage the underground water sources "
REALITY
The company will build two twin tunnels that will have an extension of 5.6 kilometers, each one will have a diameter of eight meters, which will be in charge of transporting the materials, supply networks and drainage from the mine to the beneficiation plant that will be located in Surat. Minesa ensures that this type of infrastructure avoids superficial impacts on soil, noise and vegetation.
The company indicates that the tunnels will be built with systems that guarantee the stability of the terrain and the good management of groundwater, since it is possible that during its operation the water will reach the tunnels by natural infiltration, despite this the company will collect it by means of underground water collection works,
also called sinks.
In this regard, the president of the Colombian Society of Engineers, German Pardo, who is an expert in underground engineering, expresses that this type of tunnel is at the forefront of South American engineering
Many things are said about the project but the reality of it is one and it will be the ANLA experts who will give their approval or not to the project. As evidenced, none of the messages with which they oppose the project has a technical basis and is based on common perceptions.