Chile: Marches and legal action to oppose HidroAysén dams
- La Tercera photo
[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago for May 10. See original here. The Aysén region, in Chilean Patagonia, is the least populated and most inaccessible in the country and its most pristine. Plans to construct hydroelectric plants there and long transmission lines to supply power to more populous regions have been met with strong protests by area residents, environmentalists and others.]
Social and environmental movements and opposition parliamentary groups announced on Tuesday plans for marches and legal actions, in both domestic and international courts, to halt the construction of five dams in Patagonia.
Opponents of the project have also denounced police represson aginst demonstrations held yesterday after the approval of an environmental impact study on HidroAysén, as well as alleged conflicts of interest on the part of officials involved in the project.
The project, initiated in 2006, foresees the construction of five dams on the Pascua and Baker rivers in Patagonia, with an investment of 3.2 billion dollars, to generate an average of 18.43 gigawatt-hours annually.
Meanwhile, the administration, through Environmental Minister María Ignacia Benítez claimed the project meets relevant environmental requirements. “It is the project that has been the most evaluated by far,” she stated to Radio Cooperativa.
After approval yesterday, the Comisión de Evaluación Ambiental [Environmental Evaluation Commission] for the Aysén region has until May 16 to submit an environmental qualification statement to the parties involved.
Environmental organizations and the HidroAysén consortium, made up of Endesa, an affilate of Endesa España, and Colbún have 30 days to appeal the decision, which will be resolved by a council made up of the heads of six ministries.
In order to reverse the ruling, the environmentalists will appeal to the council of ministers, although they do not have much faith in that body, according to Patricio Segura of the Patagonia Sin Represas [Patagonia Without Dams] citizen’s movement.
They will also take several legal actions, among them two complaints against two state organs submitted for approval by the commission. According to Segura, “The technical reports by the evaluators were modified by political authority.”
They will also appeal to international organizations like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, of which Chile has been a member for a year.
Environmentalists have also called for the hanging of black banners on homes in the Aysén region and demonstrations in all cities on May 21, the day President Sebastián Piñera will offers his public accounting before Congress.
“The Aysén struggle is not so that it will not be approved, it is so that it will not be built, and there is still a long way to go,” Segura stated.
In the event the business consortium wins all the legal battles, it will still have to overcome other administrative hurdles to build the facilities, like obtaining water rights and environmental permits for the transmission line.
This was stated by the executive president of HidroAysén, Daniel Fernández, who, in an interview with Televisión Nacional said that “nothing is going to be built until the transmission line is approved.”
The line will have a length of some 2,000 kilometers across eight regions of the country and the consortium intends to present its environmental impact study next December.
The executive explained that in the initial plan the line does not cross national parks, “although it does cross protected wilderness areas and native forest zones.”
Meanwhile, opposition parliamentarians and environmentalists today denounced police repression of protests in Santiago, which resulted in 63 arrests, among them that of a member of Congress and the director of Chile Sustentable, Sara Larraín.
The Seventh Court in Santiago ruled today that the arrests were illegal and opposition congress members announced they will summon Minister of the Interior Rodrigo Hinzpeter and police director general Eduardo Gordon before the Chamber of Deputies to offer explanations.
Meanwhile, as reported by El Mostrador, the controversy over approval has reached the wife of Sebastián Piñera, Cecilia Morel, whose brother, Eduardo Morel, is a high executive with Colbún and the provisional director of HidroAysén.
Two weeks ago the Fundación Endesa paid one million Euros to the Fundación Integra, directed by the first lady, to reconstruct six childcare facilities damaged by the 2010 earthquake.
Tags: Aysen, Chile, dams, environmentalism, HidroAysen, hydroelectric plants, Patagonia, Patagonia Sin Represas, police repression, Sebastan Pinera