Aplicación de metodologías de evaluación ambiental asociada a los procesos básicos mineros en la planta de beneficio SODIREC, cantón Zaruma

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment is one of the most widely used methodological tools today, whose implementation of various methodologies during the evaluation of activities has allowed obtaining relevant data in decision-making and process management. In the case of Ecuador, the national environmental authority and the AAAr are institutions in charge of controlling projects within their competence, as in mining activities, which are also regulated by ARCOM. The study area of this work is located in the Piñas canton, El Oro province, in the SODIREC beneficiation plant, a company which is dedicated to the recovery of minerals through the implementation of mining processes crushing, grinding, among others. It is in this activity that three types of methodology check list, network diagram and Conesa importance matrix would be applied for environmental impact assessment, identifying the environmental factors affected by the mining processes developed, through a qualitative approach and with a descriptive - explanatory scope. The application of the methodologies would give us as a result that within the mining processes, various environmental impacts would be generated according to each process studied, which were subdivided into secondary and tertiary impacts, and mostly represented a low compatible importance. Through the analysis of the information, it was found that two impacts represented a moderate importance, affecting the environmental factors air and water, necessitating the implementation of complementary measures.