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Disaster capitalism writ large

Disaster capitalism on display yet again.    CommonDreams reports in "Million-Liter Cyanide Spill in Argentina Highlights Canadian Mining Crimes" on a Canadian miner, already with a terrible track, wreaking havoc for locals in Argentina.

"Highlighting how corporate extractivism and lack of accountability is driving the destruction of Latin American communities, a Canadian mining company has now confirmed that more than one million liters of cyanide solution spilled from the Barrick Gold Veladero mine in San Juan, Argentina this month—making the spill more than four times larger than originally estimated.

The Toronto-headquartered mining company initially said it had spilled just 224,000 liters of the toxic liquid, used to leach gold from processed rocks, into the Potrerillos River. On Wednesday, the corporation amended its statement (pdf) and said that in fact 1.072 million liters of a cyanide and water solution were spilled due to a failure in one of the valves in the mine's pipes.

The spill occurred on September 12, "and news quickly spread among local residents through social media, causing them to stockpile bottled water in fear," the Argentina Independent reported Thursday. Last week, thousands rallied together in the city of Jáchal to protest the mining company.

Barrick—dubbed one of "The 12 Least Ethical Companies in the World" by the Swiss research firm Covalence in 2010—claims that "no risks to human health were identified."

But a joint statement from the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), Greenpeace Argentina, and the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers, made it clear that environmental protection groups remain unconvinced about the long-term impact of the spill.

"Even if the judge is understood to have put into place a series of conditions, we are concerned by the secrecy with which the incident was handled, the scarce information about the circumstances of the event provided by the authorities and the risk management measures and contingencies," said (Spanish) Pía Marchegiani of FARN. "They cannot continue to handle affairs that are so delicate, that affect the environment and people this way."

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"Just this week, MiningWatch Canada and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group released a damning report linking Canadian mining interests throughout the Americas with intensifying repression and violence against mining-affected communities."

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