El Salvador Really Isn't All That Far From the U.S.A.
In "" (Americas, May 16), Mary Anastasia O'Grady states that the El Dorado mine met or exceeded the environmental standards in El Salvador. That's an understatement. The design for the El Dorado underground mine, which we submitted to the government in 2005, would have set new precedents for environmental protection in all of the Americas, including the U.S.</br></br>Water protection is critical to the design. After numerous community consultations, we designed a mine that makes use of a reservoir to collect water in the rainy season for use in the dry season.</br></br>The water to be collected in the reservoir is contaminated with defoliates, fertilizers, pesticides, detergents and E. coli bacteria. Water discharged from the reservoir will be cleaner than the water that arrived because it passes through a water-treatment plant.</br></br>El Dorado and the vast majority of gold-bearing systems in El Salvador are of a deposit type that is the single cleanest type of primary metal deposit on the planet (low-sulfidation epithermal). There is no potential for acid mine drainage and no potential for metal contamination. The rocks containing the gold are actually cleaner than the most common rock type in El Salvador, having less mercury, arsenic and most other metals.</br></br>Local community support for the mine exceeds 80%. At the national level only one in four Salvadorans is opposed. This is not a case of "not in my backyard."