Quebradona
Quebradona is a mining project started in 2002 in the municipality of Jericó 
Antioquia by the African Multinational AngloGold based on a presumed stable economic benefit to the communities from mining exploitation in a territory with an agricultural vocation. Since its inception, the process has been surrounded by several controversies and complaints.

General Context 
In 2002, in the midst of the mining bonanza promoted by former President Álvaro Uribe, several multinational mining companies such as AngloGold Ashanti arrived  at Colombia and settled in various subregions of the country, including several municipalities in Southwestern Antioquia. There they presented themselves to the communities as specialists in soil studies to improve agricultural conditions in the territory, according to several citizens. In this way, they obtained a mining exploration contract while offering job opportunities to the entire community through the territory mining exploitation.  This is in response to the economic lags of the inhabitants given the little state support in the area, which had the population divided. In general terms, there was no consensus on the project, since apparently it would bring benefits and some long-term damage. This is how civic leaders opposed to the project such as Fernando Jaramillo, and the oversight body of John Jairo Arcila expressed their displeasure, while city councilors, the president of the company in Colombia and other public figures exposed the supposed increase of 1,700 million per year to 14,000 million per year that would take place if the project materializes.

The Ugly Creek 
After several residents, in 2015, reported a fetid odor, as well as a dissimilar brown color from the natural one of a creek known as La Fea, they filed this complaint with the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Antioquia, counting on the support of the John Jairo Arcila Oversight Office, achieving regional media coverage.This call was joined by voices such as the former Minister of Mines and Energy Jorge Eduardo Cock Londoño, the environmental leader Fernando Jaramillo (Antioquia), several businessmen and the university professor Luis Carlos Rúa, several years after the original complaint. This with the aim of helping from its shores to achieve national significance and attention from the ANLA. Although the company explained that these events took place due to a misinterpretation of the norm, the truth is that the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Antioquia fined the Multinational, upon finding proven that it located less than 15 meters from this water tributary an exploration platform, after these expressions of rejection of the project. In this regard, former minister Cock Londoño requested an increase in the value of the fine, since according to him, the current one did not reflect the dimension of the environmental damage caused.

License Suspension 
At the end of 2019, several environmental leaders were invited to an event organized between the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Renzo García in the city of Bogotá where the present the book "Huellas de la energía" and structured a conversation for the Design of Strategies for the Defense of the Páramo de Santurbán and for avoid the Fracking, where Hermán Vergara, a resident of Támesis Antioquia and social leader, denounced some presumed dangers that it entailed for his region that included the municipality of Támesis, AngloGold's mining commitment in Southeast Antioquia, among them the installation of a tailings dam 2 km from the Cauca River with characteristics similar to that of Brumadinho in Brazil whose collapse caused severe environmental damage, also leaving 270 people dead. After learning of this complaint, Luis Carlos Rúa, a guest at the event, developed a public collection through social networks to finance an investigation in the area of influence of the project. To do this, he sought the support of various activists, including Colombian swimmer Jorge Iván del Valle, singer Adriana Lucía, Colombian actor Julián Román, actress Carolina Guerra, among others. With the proceeds from the vaki, he traveled to the area, where he settled for three months, documenting various testimonies, resulting in a descriptive documentary and an international complaint through Rolling Stone against the alleged omissions of the ANLA against the threat in the making, because in Rúa's concept, this project represented a threat to the ecosystem and the water sources that supply the vital liquid to 24 municipalities; This complaint had been in Corantioquia for 4 years without progress to date. The end of the demonstrations in networks promoted by Rúa, after more than 9 months of media pressure, finally coincided with the archiving of the project license of the powerful Multinational.

Controversies 
According to an audio published in the newspaper El Tiempo by John Jairo Arcila, the rector of the San Francisco de Asís Educational Institution in Jericó, informed the teachers of the offer that the AngloGold company made to 11th grade students to carry out an virtual pre-icfes, as well as an English course for the other grades, as support for the complaint. To access this offer, it was necessary to provide the data of the students by teacher as well as the telephone numbers of the parents. This fact was described as serious, by the professor of the Externado University Juan Carlos Upegui, who assured that the data could be used to profile and therefore discriminate against students whose families did not support said project, in an open violation of habeas data. 27 For its part, the company responded indicating that it was an imprecision in the communication, since the call was not mandatory. According to other complaints, similar events would have taken place in other educational institutions in the municipality in 2019.  On the other hand, some national figures who at the time supported the arrival of multinationals, today oppose the project, without the reason for their opposition is clear, as in the case of former President Uribe, who is said to have personal interests in the area.

See also
Mineral industry of Colombia

References

 
 
Surface mines in Colombia