Representatives from five national universities, CONICET, INTI and Environmental Lawyers Association, released a document on the 10 reasons for supporting the project that is half penalty Chamber of Deputies.
The signatories claimed that the detailed report was then made "against the erroneous arguments that different governors and mining corporations are spreading in the Senate." In this regard, stressed that:
1 - glaciers law passed in the House of Representatives (Law Bonasso Filmus) is an important step for safeguarding our water resources and protection of the ecosystem of our range. It is clear that the law passed in the House of Representatives is a law to protect glaciers, our "water factory", as such, Article 6 prohibits various activities, not just mining, in a very small portion of Argentina.
2 - Article 2 also defines the glaciers, the law includes the area of \u200b\u200bthe periglacial environment "With frozen soil acts as a regulator of water resources, protecting a small portion of our territory. At national level, and the necessary conditions for the existence of glaciers and periglacial so defined, can be estimated that even with the extension of ice Santa Cruz, and all regulatory periglacial area of \u200b\u200bwater resources, the law protects only about 1% of the Argentine territory (in the American portion emerged). Thus, it is true that would be included within the law a large part of the country or the provinces mountain range, as they claim to believe certain reports disseminated by the governors or promineros requested by several published by the Cámara Argentina de Empresarios Mineros. Nor is it true that the law prevents the realization of the trans-Andean train in Mendoza or Black Water Tunnel in San Juan because, unlike the Senate bill, the of Deputies does not prohibit the construction of infrastructure in the periglacial environment, but only in glaciers.
3 - No less important is the fact that, thus formulated, the law of protection of the glaciers passed by the House of Representatives aims to protect watersheds, which have an ecological unit functional inter-character and therefore outside to a single provincial jurisdiction. The waters are born in a province, crossing their territory and continue their course through one or more provinces, irrigating fields and cities, and catering to different populations. Since inter-basin, it is also up to the Federal Government being the guarantor of the basin unit, since any action or legal determination in the management of water affects all territories of the provinces through which they run. The aim is to achieve the best instrument for sustainable and efficient use of scarce and vulnerable resource, ensuring solidarity between the different provinces, based on a concept of national territory. This means that the provinces can not have exclusive discretion of the jurisdictional water resources and watersheds that do not support exclusive provincial powers and therefore the responsibility of the whole nation and the people of Argentina.
4 - Article 7, the law passed in the House of Representatives incorporates the Strategic Environmental Assessment (the law passed in the Senate did not include) in protected areas. This type of evaluation (strategic) adds in his study the cumulative effects and regional ventures undertaken. That is, studies the relationships of various projects among themselves. In this regard, should be understood that since the eco-environmental system perspective is not a mere addition of one project to another, but taking into account the relationships of various projects among themselves, and their systemic contexts (structural or functional). To understand the importance of the Strategic Environmental Assessment take into account that the proposed Pascua-Lama and Veladero (both located in the province of San Juan and operated by Barrick Gold) are part of the gold district, which could explain the omission deliberate in the previous preliminary approval of the Senate.
5 - Another article by the governors challenged promineros is 15, which requires that in areas where there are already activities prohibited by Article 6, shall complete the inventory of glaciers of national competence, within a maximum period of 180 days after enactment. It also provides for conducting an environmental audit for such projects underway (such as Pascua-Lama, operated by Barrick Gold) and by application of impact on protected areas may be ordered cessation or relocation of the activity, and protection measures and cleanup as appropriate. The difference with the project approved by the Senate is substantial: the project of Representatives within 180 days to the Environmental Audit runs from the sanction of law, while in the Senate must be concluded before the inventory of all provincial jurisdiction. With the drafting of the initial approval of the Senate, the Environmental Audit becomes optional in each province, which intervene in the conduct of the Inventory of Glaciers and Periglacial Environment sets the standard itself, but no specific deadlines for this work. This means that if a court delays the completion of the inventory, nor the Environmental Audit will be held on the projects currently under implementation. In short, to become law the initial approval of the Senate end of legitimizing the present mining projects affecting to glaciers and periglacial environments, just as Pascua-Lama.
6 - Article 17 of the initial approval of Representatives introduced the Precautionary Principle. The same is simply the application of the provisions of Article 4 of the General Environment Law (No. 25,675), which, in the absence of information (as in the areas where the inventory of glaciers has not been done yet), requires preventive action when there are threats of serious or irreversible. Thus, it is clear that in places where there is buttoned up the inventory of glaciers and Periglacial environment can not be authorized new extractive activities.
7 - The governors who seek to hide behind Article 124 of the Constitution, which states that natural resources are the original owner of the provinces can not have exclusive discretion of its natural resources, because it is precisely our Constitution who has limited this domain at all provincial. Thus, the laws of basic environmental protection budgets are a faculty of the National Congress, which delegated authority to the provinces through Article 41 of the Constitution. "The Nation promulgate rules containing minimum protection, and the provinces those necessary to complement them. "So what has sustained the Supreme Court of the nation when he stated that:" ... corresponds to the Nation shall regulate containing the minimum protection and provinces, the rules for complement and to supplement is to add a requirement or condition not contained in legislation complemented ... "(Vote doctors Lorenzetti, Fayth and Petracchi in re" Silvana versus Villivar Chubut province and other "17/04/2007). There is therefore a clear division of responsibilities Nation - provinces that provides a basic institutional framework on which should sanctioned and interpreted the laws of tight budgets.
8 - In anticipation of a reversal in the National Congress enacted the mining provinces of express way, provincial laws 'protection' of glaciers, which opens the door to mining in protected areas the law won initial approval in the House of Representatives. Intend to make these local rules in a legal obstacle to the implementation in the provinces of the future national law attempting to subvert the prevailing legal framework. However, in order to finance laws is to equalize minimum environmental protection throughout the country, the provinces can always supplement them and make them more strict but I could not make less protective regulations. These provincial laws remain in force only as more protective or not contrary to the principles and provisions contained in the forthcoming national law, in case you do not, prevail.
9 - The passage of the bill in the House of Representatives is the product of consensus, and is supported by socio-environmental assemblies in different provinces who fight in defense of WATER, by recognized environmental groups and many intellectuals and academics, different public universities in the country, many of whom are specialists in the various and complex dimensions involved the problem.
10 - We know the huge corporate pressures that threaten the Senate of the Nation. By itself, the adoption of the law to protect the glaciers passed in the House of Representatives is urgent, since at stake is nothing less than the preservation of water and our natural assets, and necessary for all those who think the nation in terms of concepts and long-term inclusive, that is, a nation for the entire Argentine people and for generations future.
The document is signed by Mirta Antonelli, National University of Córdoba, Pablo Bergel, National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI), Norma Giarracca, University of Buenos Aires, Marcelo Giraud , National University of Cuyo, Horacio Machado Araoz, National University of Catamarca, Maristella Svampa, CONICET-Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Miguel Teubal, University of Buenos Aires, and Enrique Viale, Bar Association environmentalists.
(Source: http://www.telam.com.ar/vernota.php?tipo=N&idPub=198816&id=377427&dis=1&sec = 1)
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