The environmental disaster caused by the Larrea mine in Sonora will not be closed

Mexico City. Regarding the environmental disaster caused by Grupo México in the Sonora River 10 years ago, even though progress will be sought in the remainder of the six-year term, it is an open file, “there is no shelving“We must continue to do so to truly remedy the damage caused,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. That is why the complaints that have been filed, there is a criminal complaint in process that is being processed, both in Sonora and in the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic..

At the presidential conference, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) presented a new report on the case in which it made clear that does not accept that the environmental damage caused by Grupo México was remedied. The spill was not an accidentbut there was negligence in the hydrological design of the dam, said María Luisa Albores, head of the department; The Poniente Dam failed with the first two regular rains of July and August 2014. Toxic fluids spilled into the Tinaja 1 Dam and this in turn into the river. This demonstrates negligence in the design.

It was highlighted that without having addressed the environmental impacts and the health of the population, in the previous administration They decided to extinguish the trust, endorsed by Profepa in Sonora upon completion of the corrective measures, and by Semarnatand consider the remediation programs to be complete.

In 2020, a ruling by the second chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation ruled that the environmental reparation and compensation violated the right to information and consultation of the affected communities. Despite this, Grupo México undertook a strategy of delaying compliance with its environmental responsibility in the Sonora River, since the operation of the trust requires the installation of a technical committee with the participation of representatives of the company, who have ignored the invitations of the environmental authority to restart work.

The balance in the legal disputes surrounding the case that the Ministry of the Interior has, regardless of the work that is being sought with the company, is that two trials are pending: one related to the trust that was created at the time and with the pending resolution for there to be compensation for the damage derived from the spill. And second, a criminal complaint filed by Semarnat in 2023 against Grupo México.

Albores described that during the last six-year period, an agreement was signed between Profepa and Grupo México that included remedying the environmental, health and material damages resulting from the spill, including the development of a remediation program and the construction of the Sonora River trust.

The trust reported an expenditure of 1,232 million pesos and 309 million were paid out of it. Of these resources, 7.8 million were granted directly to the people affected in their health, and 32.4 million pesos were allocated to the communication strategy, four times more than what was given directly to those affected; 185 million pesos in the purchase of water tanks and 4.7 million pesos in a water treatment plant in Bacanuchi, which only operated for two years, until 2017.