Less than 20 kilometers from La Paz in the foothills of the Sierra de la Laguna, a Canadian company may soon start digging for gold, pending a government permit. Well, dig is not really accurate. First the mining company will dynamite the mountains, then pour water and cyanide over the open pit, forever changing the environment and potentially polluting the aquifer that is the source of the region's water.
"Mining companies get great wealth," Juan Trasvina, an engineer with a masters degree in environmental science, tells me. "But they don't use it to clean up what they do. Mining leaves behind millions and millions of tons of toxic waste and they do nothing about it."
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