Police Discover “Abnormal” Pollution Canals
(June 11, 2007) Authorities this weekend ordered the closure of Region VII’s Licancel pulp plant, as evidence continues to mount linking the CELCO-owned facility to last week’s devastating fish kill in the Mataquito River.
Last Wednesday health officials declared an environmental state of emergency after thousands of fish were discovered dead in the Mataquito River. Suspicion immediately fell on the nearby Licancel pulp plant, the only industrial facility in the area. Several weeks ago the plant temporarily ceased operations for maintenance purposes. CELCO-Licancel administrator Luis Correa insisted last week that during the plant cleanup workers “didn’t dump anything,” though pH counts taken of the river in the days and weeks since suggest otherwise (ST, June 8).
Police investigating the plant on Friday made another interesting find: two manmade channels linking the plant to the river. The channels, described by police as “abnormal,” contain a seemingly toxic, aqua-blue substance.
The next day Environment Minister Ana Lya Uriarte visited the plant to inspect the suspicious channels first-hand.
“We’re standing next to a channel that deposits into the river something more than just rainwater,” the minister told reporters. “There’s a blue liquid there that’s clearly manmade. The fish kills and the harm caused to the river’s flora and fauna are not the product of a natural phenomenon. Someone is clearly responsible for all this.”
The company that owns the plant, forestry giant CELCO, has promised full cooperation. Late last week CELCO promised its own international investigation. “If a studies show that toxins from the plant caused the fish kill, the company will take responsibility for the damage,” CELCO stated. The company also ordered its general manager, Matías Domekyo, to return early from a business trip in China. Domekyco is expected to arrive in Chile today, Monday.
In the meantime, information about the scope of the environmental disaster continues to pour in. A local sheep farmer named Andrés Valenzuela reported over the weekend that three of his animals died, presumably from drinking contaminated river water. Toxins are also believed to have killed a cow.
“We don’t know what to do,” said Valenzuela. “I have a small farm that I irrigate with river water and my animals…drink that water. I don’t want my animals to keep dying.”
The disaster is also taking an economic toll on the region. Farmers, artisan fishers, shellfish producers and local tourism operators have all been hit hard by the crisis.
This is not the first time CELCO, which last year boasted record earnings of more than US$600 million, has been blamed for serious environmental problems. In 2004 the company caused a disaster of immeasurable proportions in Region XIV’s Carlos Anwandter Wetland Sanctuary, where thousands of black-necked swans died or migrated away because of pulp plant poisoning.
Autopsies conducted on the dead swans attributed their demise to alarmingly high concentrations of iron and other metals in the water. The chemical change in the polluted area was so extreme it altered the color of the water and killed off the swans’ lichen food source.
“What was probably the largest population of black- necked swans in South America has been wiped out in less than a year. It is an environmental catastrophe,” said Clifton Curtis of the World Wildlife Federation after visiting the area in 2005.
“Before the pulp mill, there were more than 5,000 black necked swans in the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary. When we visited the core of the sanctuary in August, we could find only four.”
This is also not the first time the Mataquito River itself has been poisoned. In December 1999 area residents – just as they did last week – found thousands of dead fish in the river. Backed by an NGO called the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, residents took the case to court. The case, however, was eventually thrown out.
The Licancel plant has been in operation since 1994. CELCO bought the facility in 1999.
SOURCE: LA TERCERA, EL MERCURIO, OLCA.CL
By Santiago Times Staff (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
