Grupo

October 18, 2023

(AP Photo/El Imparcial, Julian Ortega, File)

I found a reprint of an AP article in the Business section of yesterday’s local newspaper that addressed a complaint filed against Mexico’s biggest copper producer.  The Grupo Mexico mining company was involved in the August 2014 mine spill which sent 10 million gallons (40 million liters) of acidified copper sulfate from a waste reservoir at Grupo Mexico’s Buenavista mine into the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers.  Maria Luisa Albores González, head of Mexico’s Environment Department, said there are still “alarming levels of air, water and soil pollution across 94 square miles (250 square kilometers) to this day.”  The mining company closed its remediation fund in 2017, arguing that it had met its legal requirements.  The government contends the closing was premature and is asking the courts to order the establishment of a new fund.  In the original agreement Grupo Mexico had promised to establish 36 water treatment stations.  Only 10 were installed and only two of those were finished, and those two quickly ran out of funding.  Activists in the affected area were cautiously optimistic after the government’s legal action.

When I checked online, I found Grupo México is a Mexican conglomerate that operates through the divisions of transportation (GMxT), mining (Minera Mexico), and infrastructure (Fundacion Grupo Mexico).  Grupo’s transportation division operates the largest rail fleet in México, with 6,935 miles (11,000 km) of track, more than 800 engines, and 26,300 coaches.  The track interconnects five major inland Mexican cities, five cities along the border with the United States, and 13 seaports (5 on the Pacific Ocean, 8 on the Gulf of Mexico).  Mining is Grupo México’s largest division, operating 14 mines and 52 plants in Mexico, Peru, the US, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Spain.  The division operates as Americas Mining Corporation, whose main subsidiaries are Southern Copper Corporation in México and Perú, American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) in the United States, and Minera Los Frailes in Spain.  Grupo México is the largest mine operator in Mexico and Peru, as well as the third largest in the US.  The company is primarily focused on the extraction of copper and is the world’s fourth largest copper producer and controls the largest copper reserves in the world.

Grupo Mexico was founded by Raúl Antonio Escobedo and Larrea Mota Velasco in 1978 and purchased several of the countries key copper mines after the government of Carlos Salinas declared the state mining company bankrupt in the early 1980’s.  By 2000, Grupo México was responsible for 87.5 % of Mexico’s copper production.  Grupo holdings also have a history of pollution and mining disasters.  The Sea of Cortés acid spill (2019) leaked 792.5 gallons (3,000 liters) in northwestern Mexico.  The Rio Sonora spill (referenced above, 2014) sent 52,318 cubic yards (40,000 m³) of copper sulphate into the Sonora and Bacanuchi Rivers.  Grupo was also involved in the Pasta de Conchos mine disaster (2010) which gained worldwide attention for the 33 miners trapped in Copiapó, Chile.  In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found Grupo’s ASARCO operation responsible for the environmental pollution at 20 Superfund sites across the country.

Thoughts:  When I was with the state of Utah in the late 1980’s I worked with the EPA and ASARCO on remediation of one of the superfund sites.  The lead and copper smelting industry had polluted the entire Salt Lake Valley at the turn of the 20th century, and litigation brought by the local farmers closed all but the ASARCO site.  ASARCO later purchased the lead smelter turned steel mill which the EPA was going after.  The settlement defined cleanup for the site and residences in the surrounding blocks.  The original lawsuit specified acidic rain killed everything in a swath 15 miles long.  Remediation is never sufficient to counter the havoc wrought.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.