Just four months from now, the instructions of the Secretary of Economy, Tatiana Clouthier, to discharge 17 million cubic meters of residual brine into the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, in Baja California Sur, must be fulfilled.
The former Sinaloa legislator is serving one year in the presidential cabinet. And one of its first actions was the rescue of Exportadora de Sal, a company in which the Mexican government is associated with Mitsubishi Corporation, to exploit the largest open pit field in the world and where there are accumulated at least 300 million tons of brine. residual in storage vessels in more than 4,000 desert hectares, in Guerrero Negro.
In the spring of last year – after two decades of failed plans and cumbersome litigation – the environmental monitoring of the lagoon complex adjacent to ESSA began, under the terms of the authorization granted by Semarnat. Within three months, the phase prior to the start of the controlled discharge of the waste will be completed, mainly magnesium chloride plus other components settled in the solid bottoms.
To the opposition of environmental groups and residents of that remote region of the Mexican Pacific, due to the damage that the natural reserve would suffer, the claims of legislators and officials of the Fourth Transformation are added, for what they consider a wasted opportunity.
It would not be the first time that within the lopezobradorista administration there was a difference of criteria. Or that the principles were contrary to the criteria of economic policy. This particular case would involve the production of lithium hydroxide.
The previous studies and the Environmental Impact Statement itself are conclusive about the presence of this coveted mineral in the residual brines, but the complaint of the opponents to the discharge of the storage vessels of Guerrero Negro is about the cancellation of starting in those latitudes the industrialization strategy of lithium hydroxide and other raw materials.
Seven years ago, the then general director of ESSA, Jorge Humberto López Portillo, signed an agreement with the firm Pacsys to dispose of the waste and they agreed to a sale price per ton of four dollars if the product was delivered by glass and by $ 6.50 outside of Guerrero Negro.
The board of directors annulled the negotiation, which led to a lawsuit in US courts. In November 2016, the then federal deputy Rocío Nahle, presented a proposal with a point of agreement to require ESSA – a sectorized company to the Ministry of Economy – to avoid unnecessary spending and the destruction of a valuable asset.
The following month, Mario Ariel Juárez Rodríguez, also a member of the Morena parliamentary group in San Lázaro, promoted an exhortation to the Secretary of the Navy, to prevent the evacuation, elimination, introduction or release in the Ojo de Liebre-Guerrero Negro lagoon complex. Manuela, or in any other part of the Mexican marine areas, of the residual brine made by ESSA, due to its potential harmful effects on the environment. To do so would be in contravention of the Law of Vertimientos in the Mexican Marine Zones.
Registered in September 2019 under the heading of “other investment projects”, the program for the management, discharge and dilution of the residual brine produced by ESSA would seek to have a new pumping system “that takes advantage of the flow and turbulence of the currents marinas to optimize mixing and dilution rate “.
According to the national public tender LO-010K2N002-E6, the parastatal summoned specialized companies to develop the executive project and the engineering of the pumping system, under an estimated budget of 200 million pesos.
Side effects
MATCHED? Except in Oaxaca and Quintana Roo, the Yes for Mexico coalition parties (PAN, PRD, and PRI) will nominate single candidates in Aguascalientes, Durango, Hidalgo, and Tamaulipas. The tricolor would go only in Oaxaca, where the best evaluated prospects are three collaborators of the current president, Alejandro Murat. The three best qualified are: Francisco Ángel Villarreal, former director of IEEPO; the former president of the local Congress, Eufrosina Cruz, and Germán Espinosa Santibáñez, former Secretary of Administration.
RECOVERED. To celebrate the arrival of 2022 and one year of his exoneration, General Salvador Cienfuegos gathered his family in Acapulco, Guerrero. And to witness the 12 chimes, he went to a dinner-dance, without major displays or outbursts.
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Journalist and columnist for El Economista, author of Doña Perpetua: el poder y la opulencia de Elba Esther Gordillo. Elba Esther Gordillo against the SEP.