Bolivian officials this month launched an extensive environmental audit of mining along the Pilcomayo River, including operations at the Laguna Pampa tailings pond in the Upper Pilcomayo region, site of a major spill of toxic mining waste in late October. Meanwhile, Mario Velasco, director of the Bolivian mining ministry’s environment unit, says the government has funds to build a larger tailings pond at San Antonio, a town near Potosí on the Pilcomayo River. Last month, the government signed an agreement under which the German development bank KfW is making a US$3.4 million grant for the San Antonio facility, which will include a water-treatment plant. Velasco says bids for the work are now being accepted, with groundbreaking slated for June and operations expected to...
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Court litigation has delayed and could even derail a top priority of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: a US$1.7 billion project to divert water from Brazil’s second-largest river to the arid northeast region. Officials had expected work to be underway by now on the two-year project, which calls for the construction of two canal, tunnel and aqueduct networks capable of diverting 1% of the water from the São Francisco River into existing reservoirs in six northeastern states. But last month the National Integration Ministry, which is spearheading the project, said it was suspending bidding until the Supreme Court rules on two court injunctions sought by Bahia state, which opposes the water-transport plans. Pedro Brito, the ministry’s chief of staff...
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The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) issued a report this month detailing missteps by Mexico’s environmental-enforcement agency in handling illegal-logging complaints in northern Chihuahua state’s Tarahumara mountains. The CEC, a tri-lateral agency created in conjunction with the North American Free Trade Agreement, prepared the report, called a factual record, in response to a citizens submission filed on behalf of the region’s Rarámuri Indians. In the submission, originally filed with the CEC in 2000, a human rights group based in Chihuahua City accused federal authorities of routinely ignoring complaints about logging done in violation of environmental laws and regulations. The Commission in Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights (Cossydhac) also alleged that in one instance, sand was dug up and hauled from one...
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Argentina’s capital city of Buenos Aires hopes to reduce the pressure on its landfills by promoting solid-waste separation and recycling under its new “zero trash” law. The law, approved in November, requires that reusable and recyclable materials in the solid-waste stream be reduced by 30% by 2010, 50% by 2012, 75% by 2017 and 100% by 2020. Buenos Aires generates 4,000 tons of trash daily, some 40-45% of which could be reused or recycled. It is making its trash-reduction push amid a severe shortage of landfill space. The city’s principal landfill for years—located in Villa Domínico, just minutes from the city center—was closed in Jan. 2004 after residents of the area complained of pollution. Ceamse, the government agency that oversees...
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