Explotación minera en Portovelo: manejo integral de relaves mineros para minimizar impactos ambientales

Abstract

The ordering of the different activities within a territory allows the strategic organization of the projection of growth and land use in the geographical space. Planning allows the use of resources and the conservation of the environment. The canton Portovelo is located in southern Ecuador, in the province of Oro; sector in which the extraction, processing and obtaining of gold has been carried out from pre-Columbian times to the present. The mining activity has caused great problems, one of the causal factors is the phase of the benefit of the mineral; the arbitrary location of the beneficiation plants due to the lack of planning and control by the authorities, have allowed them to be located at the end of the Yellow and Calera rivers, to these channels the queues composed of mercury and cyanide are exploited; To this serious situation is added the abandonment of the tailings that generate environmental liabilities, these factors synergistically detonate in the pollution of the rivers and landscape alteration. The problem identified needs a rational and integrative management that allows the use of resources efficiently and committed to the well-being and progress of people, as well as to avoid affecting the environment. As a solution strategy to the problem identified, a Map of Territorial Planning of the mineral benefit plants is proposed, whose objective is to evaluate the capacities of the territory and identify the suitability of the territory to be able to define an appropriate area of location of mills, beneficiation plants and disposal of mining tailings.