Salar de Maricunga, is the water or lithium in the second largest reserve in the world

Located in the heart of the Atacama desert, in the foothills of the foothills that ascends to 6,000 meters of the impressive volcano “The Eyes of the Salty”on the border with Argentina, the Maricunga salt flat is one of many landscapes of Chili that takes your breath away for its beauty.

A pristine space, only altered by the dirt track that connects to the neighboring country, at about 4,000 meters of altitude, colonized by groups of guanacos, vicuñas, flamingos, condors and from time to time a vehicle that breaks the silence and surrounds its white surface powdered, almost dawn.

Nature in its purest state that also guarantees the supply of water to the small populations of the ethnic group “colla” who live from herding and farming in the surrounding streams, now extremely concerned about lithium fever, which has broken out across the country and threatens their livelihood.

According to a prospection published weeks ago by the national copper company (Codelco), the Maricunga salt flat is the second in the world in lithium concentration, only surpassed by the nearby Atacama salt flat, which has been exploited for years.

In the 132 samples analyzed in the laboratory, extracted from the perforation of 10 wells, concentrations ranging between 517 and 1,787 milligrams per liter (mg/l) are observed, with an average of 1,073 mg/l and a median of 978 mg/ he. In total, since 2016, 2,368 meters have been drilled in the salt flat, reaching maximum depths slightly above 400 meters.

waiting for the inevitable

Although the flag of the fight remains raised, carried last May to the Palacio de la Moneda by Ercilia Araya, ancestral leader of the Colla Pai Ote community, a nomadic human group that has inhabited the area between the desert of Atacama and the Andes, the pessimism of what is emerging as inevitable dominates over hope among the small communes that dot the hills.

A hundred kilometers from the highway that winds through the desert and connects the different copper and gold mines scattered in the area with the city of Curicó, Miriam Rivera Bordones, spokesperson for the families of El Bolo, in the commune of Copiapó, puts a face to that fight of the little ones against the gigantic Chilean mining industry.

And he leaves a first sentence that summarizes the entire problem and sentences the eternal economic dilemma between exploiting the present -rooted in the neoliberal system- or looking to the future.

“He water It is much more valuable than lithium, that is why we say that if lithium is exploited, future generations will be the losers and will have to leave here because what are they going to do without water?” he wonders before emphasizing that it is not something speculative, but a verified fact.

An irreversible path that the massive exploitation that local and foreign mining companies dedicated to the search for copper and gold have already shown in the same region.

“What was the Santa Rosa lagoon, which was an immense lagoon, is a quarter of what it was. The same mining companies that have exploited it have been sucking the water and are shrinking just like the San Francisco lagoon. That is already happening.”he warns.

Impact on biodiversity

Biologists who have also worked in the area warn, for their part, of the great animal and plant diversity that will be at greater risk if progress is made in exploitation, a decision that seems to have already been taken judging by the road infrastructures that already cross in the salt flat

Apart from the microbacteria present in this inhospitable place, it is a rather unknown ecosystem, without much previous scientific research and with a high probability of suffering irreversible impacts.

Nor is it, in this case, conjecture: the aforementioned Santa Rosa lagoon is home to one of the world’s unique flamingo populations, with three species whose survival depends on the conservation of the Atacamatinos salt flats, warns a study by the “Royal Society” british.

An unequal struggle with the economy: Over the last five years, demand for lithium has tripled in South America, driven mainly by the Chinese and European need to push the energy transition, specifically through the European Green Deal in the EU.

Although lithium traces all this future potential in Chile, the Cochilco company projects that in 2030 Argentina will surpass it in production levels, which for many must leave environmental considerations behind and advance in exploitation, despite risking water, the future “blue gold” of humanity.

Source: EFE