The community of Peine filed one of these territorial claims — that Las Vegas de Tilopozo is part of its territory. The Vegas are wetlands formed by groundwater outcrops. Those in Tilopozo, located in the southern part of the Atacama salt flat, have been used the Peine community throughout history. The land was used as a grazing area, its water and plants for medicinal purposes, and its wood for fire. Currently, it is used for recreational and tourism activities.
The area is also impacted by various mining companies, which extract the groundwater that recharges the wetlands for use in their own processes. For this reason, the Atacama community of Peine, with the support of the Council of Atacameño Peoples, sued the Escondida copper mine in 2022. The State Defense Council subsequently sued Escondida along with two other companies, the lithium production company Albemarle and the copper mining company Zaldívar, for continuously extracting water resources from the Monturaqui-Negrillar-Tilopozo aquifer, which recharges the Tilopozo wetlands.
The First Environmental Court’s inspection of the Tilopozo wetlands, and the La Punta and La Brava lagoon systems, among others. Image courtesy of the First Environmental Court.
According to the lawsuit, the extraction “has caused a greater reduction than vegetation systems in Tilopozo can withstand.” The decrease in the water level has “caused serious, permanent and irreparable deterioration of the aquifer, the wetlands, the fauna, and the life systems and customs of the Peine Indigenous community.”
For these reasons, the 2022 study was used as evidence by the state defense council in the case that is still being processed in the First Environmental Court. Sergio Chamorro, lawyer and legal advisor of the CPA, highlights that the study “has been part of the evidence along with other studies carried out by the unit through community sciences.”
Scientists and the Environmental Unit join forces
Every morning, as soon as the scorching sun of the far north of Chile rises, members of the Environmental Unit meet in the city of San Pedro de Atacama to load their pickup trucks with various technological equipment before traveling to the different points of the Atacama salt flat basin that the team studies.
After traveling several kilometers through iridescent landscapes, the team arrives at the locations where they will set up an environmental monitor with a table, a chair and a computer to record the day’s data into a spreadsheet.
The Environmental Unit’s main tasks involve monitoring surface waterflow, lagoon levels, groundwater, the physicochemical quality of surface water and aquatic ecosystems, among other activities. The team also investigates the links between brine and the lagoon systems at the edge of the Atacama salt flat, the variation in groundwater levels and vegetation in the Tilopozo wetlands, vegetation growth, the physicochemical quality of water and soil at the eastern and southern edge of the Atacama salt flat and the physical properties of the subsoil in the high mountain areas.
The First Environmental Court’s inspection of the Tilopozo wetlands, and the La Punta and La Brava lagoon systems, among others. Image courtesy of the First Environmental Court.
Mondaca, the coordinator of the Environmental Unit, says that its creation stems from an agreement that the Council of Atacameño Peoples had with a mining company to carry out participatory monitoring between the communities and the company. Later, following the positive implementation results, it officially became the Environmental Unit of the CPA, after which it began to train members of the Atacameño communities that live in various towns throughout the area in water monitoring and other environmental issues.
In 2020, the CPA made significant financial contributions towards developing a work plan to develop research in various areas of importance to the communities. Since then, the Environmental Unit has started to professionalize itself, hiring hydrogeologists and engineers and procuring technological equipment to monitor the area’s ecosystems.
Five years prior to this, in 2015, José Luque, a doctor in geology with a specialization in hydrogeology and the effect of climate on water resources, arrived in Chile to work as a researcher at the Center for Technological Research on Water and Sustainability in the Desert (CEITSAZA) of the Catholic University of the North. In 2022, as a professor in the geological sciences department at the same university, he was entrusted with the mission of developing a hydrological monitoring plan for the La Punta and La Brava lagoons, in which the Environmental Unit was invited to participate.
Monitoring carried out by the Environmental Unit. Image by Francisco Mondaca.
These lagoons are part of the Atacama salt flat’s lagoon system and are located between the Monturaqui-Negrillar-Tilopozo aquifer — the same one that the State and the community say has been overexploited — and the salt flat’s brine. The lagoons are habitats for large communities of flamingos, with previous research showing that the lagoons have high biodiversity, mainly due to the presence of a significant number of extremophile communities, which are organisms that have evolved to thrive in environments that were previously thought to be inhospitable.
Due to this, José Luque highlights that it’s of global scientific interest to research these lagoons, as studying the biodiversity of these extremophile communities can provide information on how life adapts to extreme environmental conditions.
But what did the joint research of the Catholic University of the North and the Environmental Unit show?
The findings
Prior to the study, it was thought that the brine from the Atacama salt flat — water with a concentration of salts from the salt flat — did not feed into the La Punta and La Brava lagoons. Instead, they were assumed to be exclusively fed by the Monturaqui-Negrillar-Tilopozo aquifer. However, the study’s findings indicate that the La Brava lagoon contains a mixture of brine (from the salt flat) and fresh water from the aquifer. The study indicated that the brine’s route to the La Brava lagoon is due to a geological fault in the terrain and to processes associated with the geological phenomenon known as karstification.
The La Brava lagoon’s dependence on a hyper-saline inflow from the salt flat’s brine makes it especially fragile and sensitive to variations in the inflow of brine into its water body. Such variations can generate “changes in its ecosystem” that need to be monitored and controlled year after year, says Luque.
Javier Escudero, a hydrogeologist at the Environmental Unit, says that companies’ main message in their promotional videos is that “we aren’t affecting the lagoons located in the transition area,” meaning those at the edges of the salt flat. However, based on the study’s findings, Escudero says, “We have the proof that this is not the case.”
Flamingos in the Atacama salt flat. Image by José Luque.
This scientific information, which contradicts the message being given by the companies that extract brine from the Atacama salt flat, indicates that the damage caused to the wetlands was not only due to the excessive extraction of fresh water from the Monturaqui-Negrillar-Tilopozo aquifer, but also the extraction of brine from the heart of the salt flat, which could have put these fragile ecosystems at risk.
Both Escudero and Mondaca also agree that the study raises important concerns about the use of new direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies, which involves separating or isolating lithium from other components in the brine so that it can be more easily removed without the need to use large evaporation pools. Various companies linked to the lithium industry claim that the discarded brine — leftover after lithium has been obtained — can be reinjected into the salt flat without harming the basin’s water balance and the ecosystem. However, given that the study showed that the La Brava lagoon contains brine from the salt flat, the lagoons could change their water levels or salinity if the inflow of natural brine to the lagoon system changes, explains Luque. As a result, reinjection may have impacts, says Mondaca.
For Luque, the Environmental Unit’s involvement in the study was important. The research unit of the CPA not only allowed the communities to obtain permits to access wells and monitor water levels but also provided methodologies that proved to be essential.
“We suggested using sensors that measure various physical, chemical, and biological parameters and drones to monitor bodies of water,” says Mondaca. The use of such tools had not previously been considered, so the Environmental Unit gave added value to the research. Mondaca also acknowledges that participating in the study served to strengthen and make visible the specific work that the Environmental Unit does.
Last year saw one of the most important milestones in the management of the Environmental Unit, with 18 monitoring stations installed in the Atacama salt flat basin. Of these stations, 16 measure hydrometeorological variables and two measure rainfall.
As Mondaca notes, the establishment of this monitoring network “will allow us to better calibrate” recharges to the aquifers that exist in various areas throughout the territory. “Everything we do,” says Escudero, “is with the goal of protecting the puri (water) and the ecosystems of the Atacama salt flat basin and the Lickanantay high plains.”
Banner image:The First Environmental Court’s inspection of the Tilopozo wetlands, and the La Punta and La Brava lagoon systems, among others. Image courtesy of the First Environmental Court.
This was first published here in Spanish on Feb. 6, 2024.
Chile to protect some salt flats, but selection lacks data, scientists say
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Publish date : 2024-10-28 05:17:00
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