Barrick tailings dam would uproot 6 towns

Santo Domingo.- The eventual tailings dam that the company Barrick Pueblo Viejo seeks to build in Cotuí would entail the relocation of families from El Hijo, Arroyo Vuelta, El Rayo, Las Tres Bocas, El Naranjo and Jagua Mocha, the six communities that would be impacted for the project, a topic that covered many of the questions from the community.

The revelation was made during a public hearing in the town of Arroyo Vuelta, in which the mining company presented a summary of the results of the dam’s environmental impact study, a necessary requirement to ask the Ministry of the Environment for a license to start up the dam work, which would have a length of four kilometers and a height of 157 meters. In the activity, reference was made to the acquisition of land as the “main activity of this new change that could bring changes to the families of the communities.”

The acquisition of land would entail the physical or economic displacement of residential and non-residential infrastructure (such as schools or establishments), crops, land, and livelihoods, the latter referring to the activities carried out by the community within the land and that constitute their support.