High in the Andes, a Mine Eats a 400-Year-Old City | Hacker News Reader

High in the Andes, a Mine Eats a 400-Year-Old City

news.nationalgeographic.com

36 pointsteh_klev12 comments

We don't allow toys here for the fear of lead contamination and here are "2,070 children with blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter—twice the danger level". If only other people can impose some kind of sanctions on this business to be more responsible towards their children. From what I understand, it won't cost a lot of money to take care of its children, but the adamant and irresponsible Volcan Compania Minera won't care for the people who brings them profits.

It is very unreasonable to first allow mining in the center of town, and then expect someone else, not those reaping rents (in profits and in taxes) to bear the costs of moving the citizens to to avoid lead poisoning. Their health is ruined, their home values are ruined. Their town is ruined. Of course it would've been better in the first place to not mine in such a hazardous manner in the middle of a 70K person town.

It looks like this was a town that sprung up around a silver deposit, not the other way around. That challenge of what to do now is the real problem.

As the article states, the town has existed for 400 years, and until the 1950s mining was done with tunnels, not open pits.

I think what the article misses is that the mine is pretty much the only reason the city has inhabitants. The Altiplano is not exactly full of other economic opportunities or appeal.

The other problem is that although these people are "middle income" by UN standards, by any reasonable standard they're desperately, desperately poor. Which is why they stay for the mining-linked income opportunities.

That's true - by relocation I mean perhaps a few more miles out, as opposed to living literally adjacent to the mine next to the toxic dumps. The photos show kids clothes drying next to the open pit etc.

>I think what the article misses is that the mine is pretty much the only reason the city has inhabitants.

Generally people are driven to the urban centers in the first place after their [sustainable] rural ways of life and systems of land management are dismantled in the name of "liberalization"/"privatization"/"modernization", leading to ecological deterioration, and ultimately resulting in complete desertification.

This process is taking place pretty much everywhere. Recently we've seen its bloody end-game in Syria: https://www.grain.org/bulletin_board/entries/5225-over-grazi...

It's critical to understand that human society takes place within a biophysical-ecological context. Ignore that and our predictions about the future are bound to be wildly inaccurate. The same can also be said about our understanding of the past.

Sure, that makes sense, but it ignores the historical reality of the situation. The only reason this city exists in the first place is because there was a huge deposit of silver there that the Incas or the Spaniards stumbled upon. The town grew up around the mines. The easy-to-get-at silver petered out, and they switched to mining copper, then zinc and lead. Eventually, old-style shaft mining was no longer profitable, and open-pit mining replaced it.

If you wanted to live a 15th century lifestyle growing potatoes and quinoa and herding llamas and alpacas, you can still do that - people up and down the Andes still are.

>Generally people are driven to the urban centers in the first place after their [sustainable] rural ways of life and systems of land management are dismantled in the name of "liberalization"/"privatization"/"modernization", leading to ecological deterioration, and ultimately resulting in complete desertification.

Maybe I'm misreading what you said - because I don't think you could argue that people are moving from villages to cities because of privatization and land being polluted - in general. In some specific cases people are forced to move because of externalities like pollution or instability for sure - but migration to cities is just a step in social evolution that's been happening since forever - subsistence farming is a horrible way to live compared to even low level jobs in cities and people naturally want to avoid that.

As a non-expert, I ask, "What's a solution that meets the needs of all parties?" The mine went from private to government to private hands. The people and workers need the basics, at a minimum: water, clean air, safety, health care...plus, they need opportunity. The mine owner and shareholders want a return on investment, at a time when metal prices have bottomed-out.

After reading the article, it seems so complicated that it would take competent reconciliation between all parties, to find a solution.

I support people being able to live without pollution. I also support mining as a fundamental economic activity necessary for human civilization.

But what I don't get is how this mine can extract hundreds of millions of dollars per year out of the ground and yet not be willing to scrape up the relatively small investment needed to comfortably relocate a few thousand Chilean villagers.

Mining isn't necessary a high-profit-margin business, but they really ought to consider resettlement to be a proper business expense.

[meta] did anybody try opening this article without adblock? I got two flash ads autoplaying audio in firefox (in chrome they don't auto-play audio), each with the same movie trailer but one was about a second behind the other. And it jacked up my scrolling pretty hard, probably due to the performance hit (the page loaded noticeably slower.)

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