The mining consortium Grupo México denied this Wednesday that a toxic spill from the Cananea mine had contaminated the Sonora Riverin the state of the same name, in 2014, at the same time that he rejected the diagnostic opinion of the Sonora River presented by the environmental agencies of the Mexican Government a week ago.
The remediation of the Sonora River was successful, fully in accordance with the law and supported by scientific studies and authorities,” said Grupo México in a statement issued this day as a response to the opinion published last week by the head of the Ministry of the Environment. and Natural Resources (Semarnat) of Mexico, María Luisa Albores.
In the document, the company that operates the Buenavista del Cobre mine in Cananea, stated that neither Semarnat nor the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, nor the Mexican Institute of Water Technology “They are competent authorities to verify the quality of water in wells and rivers, but these analyzes should have been carried out by the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) and the Ministry of Health of Mexico.”
The supposed findings of the sampling presented last week lack any causal link with the event that occurred in 2014; “They fail to point out other current sources of pollution such as illegal mining, the discharge of untreated sewage and the prolonged accumulation of residues from agricultural fertilizers and insecticides,” the company said.
On August 6, 2014, what has been considered the largest ecological disaster in the history of mining occurred due to the toxic spill from the Cananea mine.which left the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers that cross the municipalities of Cananea, Ures, Huepac, Banámichi, Aconchi, San Felipe de Jesús, Baviacora and Arizpe, in Sonora, filled with heavy metals.
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The Mexico Group also pointed out that the environmental conditions and integrity of the ecosystems of the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers “are the same as those that existed before the 2014 accident,” and said that there is a study by the Ministry of Health that it published in 2019. , which establishes that “there is no morbidity and mortality of the population due to the toxic spill.”
In fact, He said that Semarnat itself made an official statement through a resolution notified to the company in May 2023.recognizing that the National Water Commission (Conagua) has determined that, as of today, “the quality of the water that existed before the incident in the Sonora River has been recovered,” the note added.
Last week, the head of Semarnat, María Luisa Albores; Mariana Morales, director of the INECC; and Adrián Pedrozo Acuña, director of the IMTA, presented the results of the Environmental Diagnostic Report of the Sonora River.
The 239-page document establishes that the inhabitants of eight municipalities who live in the vicinity of the Sonora River, “face risks to health, safety and economy, due to the presence of bioaccumulative heavy metals, in quantities well above the limits that establish national and international standards.
It also points out that the damage to the region’s economy due to the Buenavista del Cobre spill totals 20,508 million pesos from 2014 to date, so businessman Germán Larrea, owner of Grupo México, has only covered 6.12% of the expenses generated, because it paid less than 1,500 million pesos.
At the conference, official Albores assured that the data contained in the environmental diagnosis “are technical and not ideological.”
While Grupo México affirms that the Sonora River region has suffered the effects of continuous disinformation campaigns by people and organizations for political and destabilization purposes, causing fear and unfounded distrust among the population and seriously affecting the economy of that area. .
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