Another water battle to keep an eye on

Newmont’s most ambitious undeveloped gold and copper holding, the Conga Project in northern Peru, is a perfect example of what can go wrong with mega-mining projects in environmentally fragile areas. Conga’s mineral wealth lies beneath pristine mountaintop wetlands that serve as the headwaters for five important river basins. Those rivers and mountain lakes supply clean water to thousands of farmers and villagers living below Conga.

So here is what puts the “con” in Conga. According to an August 2012 independent survey in the Peruvian El Comercio newspaper, 78 percent of the affected urban population opposes Conga, and 83 percent oppose it in the surrounding rural areas. Of course, those devastating numbers may be related to the shooting deaths of three protesters and one 16-year-old high school student, César Medina Aguilar, while he was merely going to the home of a classmate to lend him a book. All four were shot to death by Peruvian National Police and/ or military forces brought in by the federal government to quell anti-Conga demonstrations in the town of Celendin on July 3, 2012.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-11453-good-readnbsp-very-disturbing-practices.html