hellwoman
01-24-2007, 08:32 AM
Chile’s Best Surfing Waves To Be Trashed By Waste-Water Sludge.
CHILE’S SURFERS RAGE AGAINST ESSBIO SEWAGE PIPE SLATED FOR PICHILEMU
Chile’s Best Surfing Waves To Be Trashed By Waste-Water Sludge
(January 24, 2007) Residents of Chile’s favorite surfing town, Pichilemu, are mounting a fierce campaign against the construction of a sewage pipe that will pump contaminated water directly into the waves of the famous spa town’s La Puntilla beach. Helped by an assortment of water-sports celebrities, they warn that the waste water pipe “will kill Pichilemu.”
The pipe - 17 kilometers long and 34 meters deep – is proposed by the Sanitary Services of Biobío Company (Essbio), which manages the area’s waste-water treatment. The company currently dumps its sewage into the Petrel Lagoon, which has turned a “glowing fluorescent” color due to years of contamination and overflows into the sea during rainy periods.
The government is now reviewing Essbio’s environmental impact assessment for the sewage duct and will announce its decision in late March 2007.
But like many other emblematic environmental issues in Chile – Barrick Gold’s Pascua gold mine project, the Los Pelambres tailings dam project, the damming of southern rivers to create hydro power, the pollution of the Cruces River by the Celco wood pulp plant, and the mining-industry-related arsenic poisoning throughout northern Chile – the government’s lack of backbone in dealing with corporate environmental predators will most likely carry the day.
“We’ve studied Essbio’s plans carefully and they don’t consider the strong swell that will carry the smell and filth directly onto the beaches of Pichilemu and the town itself,” Clara Subercaseaux of non-governmental organization Proplaya told the Santiago Times. “Neither do they take into account the drastic changes to the shape of the sandbanks where the duct will be buried.”
“Essbio can’t just use our sea like a rubbish dump,” she added.
Nicolás Recordón, one of Chile’s top five windsurfers, is a veteran of Pichilemu’s waves. He has no doubt the force of waves in the area – famously known as “Wolf’s Break” – will either return the waste to the shore or break the pipeline.
“The sea moves incredible amounts of sand and I’m sure it could easily break the pipe,” said Recordón, recalling when strong waves burst a sewage pipe near the beaches of Tocopilla, Region II in June 2006. “If they pollute the beach I’ll leave and I’ll never come back. And I am 100 percent sure that this pipe will pollute the beach.”
Another big name fighting the pipeline proposal is Chile’s champion surfer, Ramón Navarro. Navarro was born in Pichilemu - or, as he likes to say, “I was born at Wolf’s Break” – and, as the son of a fisherman, grew up in family that made its living from Pichilemu’s coast.
“The sea has given me everything,” he said. “It’s like the backyard of my house.”
Since 2005 the local community has united under the movement Citizens for a Clean Pichilemu (Agrupación Ciudadana Pichilemu Limpio). “We’ve organized lots of demonstrations,” Navarro told the Santiago Times. “The whole community’s against it.”
Rather than the sewage pipe, they support the construction of a state-of-the-art waste water treatment plant.
“We want a land-based water treatment plant, which would purify sewage water and present less risk to the local community,” said Luis Pavez, leader of Citizens for a Clean Pichilemu.
Essbio rejected a land-based water treatment plant on the basis of cost, warning it would raise the average water bill for Pichilemu residents by US$16 per month. Rejecting a treatment plant leaves the effluence pipe as the only remaining option.
“No one has come up with an alternative,” Samuel Leiva of Greenpeace Chile told The Santiago Times. “This is what we at Greenpeace find most worrying. Of course it’s a threat; it’s a massive threat to tourism, to industry and to the local community.”
According to many local residents a US$16 increase in their water bill pales in comparison to the profit generated by tourism drawn to Pichilemu’s surfing beaches.
The town is almost entirely dependent on its coast – tourism and fishing are its two main industries. Pichilemu’s population leaps from 12,000 to 70,000 with the influx of tourists during the summer period.
“The authorities don’t understand that they risk losing millions of dollars generated by surfing tourism,” said Navarro. “They just want easy money. They think it’s ok for someone to throw shit into the sea as long as they get their money.”
This point is not lost on everyone in authority. Town councilor and seasoned surfer Héctor Cornejo also recognizes the threat the pipeline poses to local industry and tourism. “Tourism generated through surfing would die,” he said. “Who wants to swim from a beach covered in crap?”
Alongside the tourism industry, Cornejo pointed to the “algae women” who make their living collecting algae just 100 meters from where the pipe would be built. “And that’s not even mentioning the fishermen and shellfish divers,” he added.
Essbio obviously feels the threat of this argument and recognizes the influence that stars such as Navarro wield. “Essbio contacted me offering sponsorship,” said the surf star. “Or rather, they offered to buy me. I said I’d go along with whatever they wanted, on the condition that they don’t build the sewage pipe. They never called me again.”
SOURCE: LA TERCERA, THE CLINIC
By Beatrice Karol Burks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
The Santiago Times - English Language Newspaper in Santiago, Chile - News in Chile and Latin America
CHILE’S SURFERS RAGE AGAINST ESSBIO SEWAGE PIPE SLATED FOR PICHILEMU
Chile’s Best Surfing Waves To Be Trashed By Waste-Water Sludge
(January 24, 2007) Residents of Chile’s favorite surfing town, Pichilemu, are mounting a fierce campaign against the construction of a sewage pipe that will pump contaminated water directly into the waves of the famous spa town’s La Puntilla beach. Helped by an assortment of water-sports celebrities, they warn that the waste water pipe “will kill Pichilemu.”
The pipe - 17 kilometers long and 34 meters deep – is proposed by the Sanitary Services of Biobío Company (Essbio), which manages the area’s waste-water treatment. The company currently dumps its sewage into the Petrel Lagoon, which has turned a “glowing fluorescent” color due to years of contamination and overflows into the sea during rainy periods.
The government is now reviewing Essbio’s environmental impact assessment for the sewage duct and will announce its decision in late March 2007.
But like many other emblematic environmental issues in Chile – Barrick Gold’s Pascua gold mine project, the Los Pelambres tailings dam project, the damming of southern rivers to create hydro power, the pollution of the Cruces River by the Celco wood pulp plant, and the mining-industry-related arsenic poisoning throughout northern Chile – the government’s lack of backbone in dealing with corporate environmental predators will most likely carry the day.
“We’ve studied Essbio’s plans carefully and they don’t consider the strong swell that will carry the smell and filth directly onto the beaches of Pichilemu and the town itself,” Clara Subercaseaux of non-governmental organization Proplaya told the Santiago Times. “Neither do they take into account the drastic changes to the shape of the sandbanks where the duct will be buried.”
“Essbio can’t just use our sea like a rubbish dump,” she added.
Nicolás Recordón, one of Chile’s top five windsurfers, is a veteran of Pichilemu’s waves. He has no doubt the force of waves in the area – famously known as “Wolf’s Break” – will either return the waste to the shore or break the pipeline.
“The sea moves incredible amounts of sand and I’m sure it could easily break the pipe,” said Recordón, recalling when strong waves burst a sewage pipe near the beaches of Tocopilla, Region II in June 2006. “If they pollute the beach I’ll leave and I’ll never come back. And I am 100 percent sure that this pipe will pollute the beach.”
Another big name fighting the pipeline proposal is Chile’s champion surfer, Ramón Navarro. Navarro was born in Pichilemu - or, as he likes to say, “I was born at Wolf’s Break” – and, as the son of a fisherman, grew up in family that made its living from Pichilemu’s coast.
“The sea has given me everything,” he said. “It’s like the backyard of my house.”
Since 2005 the local community has united under the movement Citizens for a Clean Pichilemu (Agrupación Ciudadana Pichilemu Limpio). “We’ve organized lots of demonstrations,” Navarro told the Santiago Times. “The whole community’s against it.”
Rather than the sewage pipe, they support the construction of a state-of-the-art waste water treatment plant.
“We want a land-based water treatment plant, which would purify sewage water and present less risk to the local community,” said Luis Pavez, leader of Citizens for a Clean Pichilemu.
Essbio rejected a land-based water treatment plant on the basis of cost, warning it would raise the average water bill for Pichilemu residents by US$16 per month. Rejecting a treatment plant leaves the effluence pipe as the only remaining option.
“No one has come up with an alternative,” Samuel Leiva of Greenpeace Chile told The Santiago Times. “This is what we at Greenpeace find most worrying. Of course it’s a threat; it’s a massive threat to tourism, to industry and to the local community.”
According to many local residents a US$16 increase in their water bill pales in comparison to the profit generated by tourism drawn to Pichilemu’s surfing beaches.
The town is almost entirely dependent on its coast – tourism and fishing are its two main industries. Pichilemu’s population leaps from 12,000 to 70,000 with the influx of tourists during the summer period.
“The authorities don’t understand that they risk losing millions of dollars generated by surfing tourism,” said Navarro. “They just want easy money. They think it’s ok for someone to throw shit into the sea as long as they get their money.”
This point is not lost on everyone in authority. Town councilor and seasoned surfer Héctor Cornejo also recognizes the threat the pipeline poses to local industry and tourism. “Tourism generated through surfing would die,” he said. “Who wants to swim from a beach covered in crap?”
Alongside the tourism industry, Cornejo pointed to the “algae women” who make their living collecting algae just 100 meters from where the pipe would be built. “And that’s not even mentioning the fishermen and shellfish divers,” he added.
Essbio obviously feels the threat of this argument and recognizes the influence that stars such as Navarro wield. “Essbio contacted me offering sponsorship,” said the surf star. “Or rather, they offered to buy me. I said I’d go along with whatever they wanted, on the condition that they don’t build the sewage pipe. They never called me again.”
SOURCE: LA TERCERA, THE CLINIC
By Beatrice Karol Burks (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
The Santiago Times - English Language Newspaper in Santiago, Chile - News in Chile and Latin America