Civil Society, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

ARGENTINA: Impact of Pulp Mills Across Border Precedes Construction

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 8 2005 (IPS) - Residents of the eastern Argentine province of Entre Ríos, a short distance away from the future site of two new pulp mills in Uruguay, maintain that the plants have already had an impact on local economic activity, despite the fact that they will not actually open for another two years.

“Families who depend on fishing for a living say that no one wants to buy the fish they catch out of fear that they’re contaminated,” María Elena Marchioli of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly told IPS. Gualeguaychú is an Argentine tourist town near the Uruguay River, which forms part of the border between the two South American countries.

In reality, however, the fish cannot possibly be contaminated, at least not by pollution from the pulp mills in Uruguay, because work has barely begun on their construction. If anything is affecting the fishing industry today, it is fear and misinformation.

Marchioli is an administrative clerk at the border post between the two countries, and is thus in constant contact with people from both sides of the river.

Gualeguaychú, a town of 80,000, is located on the banks of the river of the same name, 22 km from where it flows into the Uruguay River.

On the eastern side of the Uruguay River is Fray Bentos, a city of 23,000 inhabitants and capital of the western Uruguayan department (province) of Río Negro.

On the outskirts of Fray Bentos, with the full backing of the Uruguayan government, two foreign companies – ENCE of Spain and Botnia of Finland – are both building pulp mills scheduled to enter into operation in 2007.

But the location of the plants has been questioned by Argentina, which shares in the management of the use of the Uruguay River.

The two companies, whose mills will be a mere 10 km apart, plan to invest a total of 1.8 billion dollars. But environmental organisations have pointed out that of this total, over 80 percent will be spent on equipment purchased in their base countries in Europe.

Botnia has confirmed that only 20 percent of its investment corresponds to domestic suppliers, while the rest will go towards imported materials. However, once the mill is up and running, local companies will be given a greater share of this business, the company maintains.

The two mills together are projected to produce around 1.5 million tons of pulp for paper production annually, double the amount currently produced by a dozen mills currently operating in Argentina along the Paraná River.

This high volume of output will require around 600 workers in total, most of whom will need to be highly skilled.

The small number of direct jobs generated relative to the huge investment involved is one of the aspects that has stirred up controversy.

The sectors that support the projects believe that the indirect employment created both during the construction of the mills and after they are in operation should be taken into account. But opponents warn that there will be greater losses than benefits for the local population.

Pulp production is one of the most highly polluting industrial activities because it releases dioxins and furans, carcinogenic chemical substances that have also been shown to weaken the immune system and cause hormonal and neurological damage to humans. The northeastern region of Argentina, bordering on Uruguay and Brazil, is ideal for the installation of pulp mills given the accessibility of river transportation and large plantations of eucalyptus trees, a favoured raw material for pulp production.

But the severe environmental impact of ENCE plants in the northwestern Spanish province of Pontevedra and the southern Chilean region of Valdivia have led residents in the area around the future sites of the new mills to fear the potential water, air and soil pollution they will cause once they are operational.

Raúl Estrada Oyuela, director of environmental affairs at the Argentine Foreign Ministry, commented that his government “cannot prevent” the mills from being built in Uruguay. It can, however, demand that no damage be incurred by Argentina as a result, and if damages are caused, it can also demand compensation.

Of course, it would be preferable if this point were never reached, said the official, who added that Argentina’s main concern is to ensure that no harmful pollution is generated. But up until now, he added, all efforts make in this regard have been in vain.

“Uruguay only wants to monitor the water, but what are we going to monitor? The disaster?” he asked.

Estrada Oyuela is a member of the binational joint commission created to study the impact of the mills being built on the eastern shore of the Uruguay River. But during the eight meetings that have been held so far, there has been no precise information supplied regarding the industrial process to be used, the water recycling system, or emissions of gases and solid wastes, he stressed.

Environmentalists recommend that the water be reused within the plant itself through a closed-loop system, but Botnia has found this technology unsatisfactory in Finland, according to company spokespersons.

Botnia has stated that it will use elemental chlorine free (ECF) rather than totally chlorine free (TCF) technology in the pulp bleaching process at its future mill in Uruguay.

While cleaner and safer than older technologies, ECF processes still use chlorine compounds, which are the source of the harmful dioxins and furans.

Estrada Oyuela believes that both Botnia and ENCE should use the cleanest technologies possible, since the mills will be located extremely close to human settlements and tourism areas. However, neither company has pledged to do so in the reports they have submitted.

The joint commission’s first findings will be released in late January.

In May, Argentine President Néstor Kirchner asked Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez to halt work on the projects until a full independent environmental impact study could be completed. His request was turned down, on the grounds that commitments had already been made to the companies by the previous administration of Jorge Batlle (2000-2005).

According to Estrada Oyuela, many of the commission’s requests for more information from the Uruguayan government are answered with the response, “to be confirmed later.” But in this case, he stressed, “there is no later,” since the mills are already under construction and will be ready to open in 2007 and 2008.

The Foreign Ministry official believes that non-governmental organisations should work more actively to support the demands of residents on the Argentine side of the Uruguay River, and to warn shareholders in both foreign companies that they could be obliged to provide compensation for those affected by any eventual environmental damage.

In the meantime, the people of Entre Ríos maintain the impact of the mills is already being felt in the region.

As a consequence of the expansion of the eucalyptus plantations created to produce pulpwood, families in the town of Cerro Alegre, in the Uruguayan department of Soriano, have had to have drinking water brought in by tanker trucks since the 1990s, since the fast-growing trees have absorbed all of the water in the area’s wells, streams and marshland.

Agricultural technician Alejandro Gaham, a member of the Gualeguaychú Citizens Environmental Assembly, told IPS that 60 loggers from that town had voiced their concerns to the group after being fired this month from the sawmill where they had been working. “They told them that they’re going to save the forest to sell it to Botnia,” said Gaham.

The Finnish company owns 100,000 hectares of land in Uruguay, of which 60,000 has been planted with trees for pulpwood, while ENCE owns another 85,000 hectares of plantations. But when the mills are in operation, they will require 3.5 million cubic metres of wood a year.

Botnia has not ruled out the possibility of buying wood from eucalyptus plantations in the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos and Corrientes.

The company notes in its own impact study that sawmills on the Argentine side of the river – which currently employ around 1,500 workers, according to Gaham – will experience a decrease in activity in the mid-term, but adds that they use “obsolete” technology.

The effects of the pulp mill controversy are also being felt by the tourism industry. Gualeguaychú receives around 600,000 visitors a year, a third of them during the carnival season. Gaham reported that investment in hotels in the area has dropped off over fears of the “rotten egg smell” associated with pulp mills.

In this regard, the companies have pledged to do everything possible to neutralise the odour produced by emissions from the mills, but they admit that there will be days when the unpleasant smell is unavoidable.