The Canelones Municipality verified that there are machines operating at night that modify the course of the water.
the mayor of cannelloni, Yamandu Orsialerted, through his Twitter account, about activities of “illegal minery” nocturnal in areas near the river St. Lucia. The chief shared a video of the Canelones Integrated Water and Beach Monitoring System (Simas) where machines are observed operating at night.
“In these moments of crisis due to lack of water, we cannot hesitate to stop the abuses“, and affirmed that the operators “they perform at night, slow down and modify the course of the river“. The canary went further and made an exhortation to the national government saying: “let us put all the weight of the State to control our Santa Lucía river. Let’s act now. We cannot sit idly by.”
Although the video is recent, recorded last Friday, May 12, Orsi had already personally delivered information about possible illegal mining activities to authorities of the Ministry of Environment in the Executive Tower, at that time he had denounced that the operations were taking place “a few kilometers from the water intake in San Ramon”.
At that time, the first suspicions pointed to “companies linked to sand pits“, but now they fall on the mining companies with irregular operations. The main concern of the departmental government is that there is an environmental impact on one of the most important rivers in the country, and of which almost 2 million people are supplied with drinking water.
Orsi accused sand companies of obstructing the natural course of the Santa Lucía River
In the document presented to Environment, it was reported that a two meter high embankment that “was artificially created”, obstructing “the natural course” and “diverting it through a channel” towards “another where it did not flow before”. In turn, Orsi had indicated that the alleged culprits were “sand companies”.
The hierarch described this as “impermissible handling“, and of areal harm to the environment” at a difficult time for water as a result of the drought that devastates the national territory. Also, he indicated that the fines that can be applied “have no proportion” to the damage caused, since these would range from 2,000 Resettable Units (UR), that is, more than 3 million pesos.
Source: Ambito
