COPAE  2009-03-26 19:29   

The level of arsenic found in the rivers around the Marlin mine is alarming. That’s what Ing. Fausto Valiente from the technical team of COPAE affirms, after the water monitoring in February 2009.

On Monday 23rd of February this year, the technical team of COPAE found a very high level of arsenic in the stream down the water dike of the Marlin mine, located in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, department of San Marcos.

The level found was of 70 ppb(parts per billion) or 0.07 mg/L. While the international standards, such as the ones of the World Bank for land strip mining, establish the maximum limit is 0.1 mg/L, the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S.A. establish the maximum limit in 0.01 mg/L.

Look at the table

The stream down the mine flows to the stream Quivichil that unites the Cuilco river, the one that forms the river basin of the Cuilco river, one of the 33 most important basins of the country, which flows to Mexico.

Water contamination gets worse

In the report presented by COPAE in October 2008 about the monitoring and analysis of the quality of water around the Marlin mine, data were presented that went up until 0.05 mg/L of arsenic in the monitoring point presented before (green line in the next graphic). The difference between the data of October 2007,March 2008 and February 2009 is enormous.

Look at the graphic

The range difference between what is established and what was found is fairly wide. This may cause serious diseases in the people living close to the Marlin mine. Arsenic effects in human beings are bladder, lung, skin, kidney, nose, liver and prostate cancer; in animals it increases the mortality and reduces the fertility, increases spontaneous abortions and damage the red corpuscles.

The pictures below show pictures of people who have drunk contaminated water with arsenic, to have an idea of the great danger of drinking this kind of contaminated water.

Look at the pictures