On August 8, the mayor of Chile Chico, Luperciano Muñoz González, received two pieces of news from the State. As in a joke, one good and one bad. 

 

The good news was that the Electoral Service accepted his candidacy for mayor of Coyhaique. 

 

The bad news was that the Environmental Evaluation Service of Aysén informed him that his proposal for a “solution” to the solid waste in a large part of the Lake General Carrera watershed, also known as Chelenko, was declared inadmissible.

 

In this chronicle, the details of a controversial initiative that proposes to incinerate (in a technology called anoxic thermodissociation or TDA) organic waste, pruning, plastics, paper, cardboard and all material with calorific value from Puerto Sánchez, Bahía Murta and Puerto Río Tranquilo ( district of Río Ibáñez), and from Puerto Guadal, Puerto Bertrand and Mallín Grande (district of Chile Chico). In a territory where, essentially thanks to community organization, responsible waste management is proposed at multiple levels: reduction, reuse, recycling, and with a view to advancing to the 7Rs with redesign of systems, together with recovery, repair and renewal of goods.

In 2020, the projects unit of the Budget and Regional Investment Division of the Aysén regional government prepared the report “Construction of a Solid Waste Management Center," which proposed a bicommunal management center for the waste generated in the six localities, located on a 45-hectare site adjacent to the current Puerto Bertrand landfill.

 

The report stated that the proposed solution should consider “responsible consumption and reduction of waste generation," putting “into practice prevention measures... actions on single-use plastic bags and plastic containers”;“selective collection of clearly defined recoverable materials, which would be densified and appropriately stored for subsequent transport and commercialization, minimizing intermediaries”; “the use of home composting for the treatment at source of the FORM fraction for subsequent secondary recovery." And “with respect to the final disposal infrastructure, the appropriate sites will be defined -under principles of sustainability, rationality, proximity, efficiency and complementarity- to organize waste flows."

 

The alternative prioritized in this plan contemplated a strong emphasis on infrastructure and facilities for treatment at source, with final disposal as the last alternative.

 

In line with this idea, Christian Democrat Mayor Ricardo Ibarra Valdebenito -who is now running for office again- succeeded in getting the Aysén regional government to approve 800 million pesos at the end of 2020 to acquire the 45 hectares mentioned above. The community of Puerto Bertrand had no major participation in this decision, being informed only when the acquisition was made public.

 

This matter was also addressed in the Final Report (2021) of the five-year evaluation of the implementation of the “Municipal Solid Waste Management Plan 2015-2035” of the Regional Government of Aysén, where it was stated that the alternative for the Lake General Carrera watershed “is expected in the medium term to provide a sustainable solution to the waste management of both districts."

 

With the land already acquired, progress was made in contracting a consultancy to prepare the respective design. Following a tender published in January 2023 by the Muñoz administration, this was awarded in March of that year to Bioaqua, which also carried out the “Diagnostic study of the Aysén Region Solid Waste Management Plan” mandated by the Aysén Regional Government in 2012. 

 

During 2023 the consultant carried out the process of information gathering and socialization of the initiative.

 

Already in the terms of reference it was expressly stated that “the waste management center will contemplate the processing of different types of waste, evaluating the implementation of a waste transformation or disposal plant, incorporating in the evaluation different technologies being one of them WtE (Waste to Energy), also the incorporation of organic waste composting, recovery of recyclable materials and final disposal of waste must be evaluated, all this in a total area of 45 hectares." Proposers with experience in this technology were weighted with higher scores.

 

Although there are six localities contemplated, the bid stipulated only one activity of citizen participation, in which “the results obtained in a preliminary manner in the Environmental Baseline and the technical proposal at the pre-project level were submitted to the consideration of the community." This was carried out via Zoom on January 23, 2024, with the participation of about 15 people (mainly from Puerto Guadal, plus some from Puerto Bertrand).

Although the EIS did not reach the hands of the evaluating bodies, when it went through the relevance consultation it raised many doubts in the SEA. In a letter sent on May 2, the agency made more than 30 observations requesting clarifications, particularly in relation to “characterizing and estimating atmospheric emissions for the different stages of the project, accompanying atmospheric dispersion modeling”, since there was no mention of this. The same was requested for odor: “Characterize (considering concentration, quality, hedonic tone, intensity) and estimate odor. In addition, in its analysis it should consider its formation process and form of release into the atmosphere, accompanying odor dispersion model or other methodologies it deems appropriate."

 

It also required that “considering the pollutants in the wash water and the proximity of the project to the Bertrand River, present graphically and spatially, the design of the project's liquid waste management (consider infiltration drains)." And he asked “what will be the treatment/disposition/disposal/disposal of the slag and ashes that will be disposed of in this area”. It also alluded to the fact that the useful life of the project is not clear, “considering its different stages (construction, operation and closure)."

 

In eight pages, the SEA requested multiple clarifications, including those related to the fact that it is located in the Chelenko Tourist Interest Zone.

 

But it was not only the SEA that expressed its concerns. 

 

On April 19, twelve organizations from the two municipalities involved sent a letter to the Environmental Evaluation Service stating that a project of these characteristics must be evaluated with the highest standard: Environmental Impact Study. These were the Puerto Guadal Neighborhood Board N8, the Puerto Río Tranquilo Neighborhood Board N6, the Puerto Guadal Tourism, Culture and Crafts AG, the Bahía Murta Calafates Tourism and Culture Group, the Chelenko Corporation, the Chile Chico Rural Communal Union, the Río Leones Tourism and Culture Committee, the Bahía Murta Farmers' Fair, the Chile Chico Rural Communal Union, and the Río Leones Tourism and Culture Committee, the Bahía Murta Farmers' Fair, the Puerto Río Tranquilo Chamber of Tourism and Commerce, the Puerto Bertrand Baker Child Development Committee, the Costa Murta Tourism, Recreation and Environmental Education Association, and the Puerto Bertrand Organized Community of Tourist Operators and Services.

 

Among the technical arguments, they mentioned that it would generate at least four of the effects that require an EIA, “due to the potential emissions into the environment of dioxins, furans and heavy metals, all toxic substances for the health of people and the environment, in quantities greater than those permitted by national and foreign standards. These emissions will be expelled from the plant, among other forms, within the gas emissions into the atmosphere in nanoparticle sizes, which are very difficult to detect and filter, so the probabilities that they will be released into the environment are high."

 

This refers to “risks to the health of the population, due to the quantity and quality of effluents, emissions or waste”; “significant adverse effects on the quantity and quality of renewable natural resources, including soil, water and air”; “resettlement of human communities, or significant alteration of the living systems and customs of human groups”; and “location in or near populations, resources and protected areas, priority sites for conservation, protected wetlands, glaciers and areas with value for astronomical observation for scientific research purposes, susceptible to be affected, as well as the environmental value of the territory in which it is intended to be located."

 

In terms of public policies, they clarify that the incineration of organic matter, pruning, plastics and other components, goes against all the initiatives that the localities of both communes have been promoting to reduce waste generation through self-production, reuse of organic waste for recovery of arable land and family gardens, waste recovery and recycling, so it would be contradictory to give a signal such as “do not make efforts to reduce or reuse your garbage, we make it disappear."

 

Moreover, the project goes in the opposite direction to the initiatives supported by sectoral public funds and the Regional Government of Aysén itself, consistent with the “Municipal Solid Waste Management Plan 2015-2035 of the Regional Government of Aysén” and which considers a “citizen program that includes the development of initiatives that seek to change consumption habits, the development of attitudes of environmental awareness, but also adds actions associated with the promotion of regulatory instruments and other related efforts."

 

The National Waste Policy 2018-2030 establishes a hierarchical strategy for waste management where the priority is to avoid generation, followed by reuse, recycling of one or more of its components, its energy recovery “leaving as a last alternative its disposal." “The 'General Carrera Basin Solid Waste Management Center' project offers an alternative that corresponds to the last action of the hierarchy for sustainable waste management, and therefore there should be other activities to be carried out in the region to advance in the sustainable management of solid waste,” the community leaders point out in the letter addressed to the SEA.

 

And, in an extensive list, they note in the letter the inconsistency of the project with the Roadmap for a Circular Chile to 2040 recently developed by the Ministry of Environment, the Law of Extended Producer Responsibility and Promotion of Recycling, the Regulation of Packaging and Packaging of the REP Law and the National Strategy for Organic Waste to 2040, which proposes to achieve 66% of recovery of organic waste generated at the municipal level by that year, to which this project would clearly not contribute to be reduced to ashes. 

 

Finally, they recall that “a waste incineration plant proposed in Lautaro (WTE Araucanía) was rejected in 2022 by the Environmental Evaluation Commission of Araucanía and in 2023 by the Committee of Ministers, with 17,000 citizen observations against it, since it was environmentally evaluated through an environmental impact study."

 

The organizations' letter was joined by the Corporación Privada para el Desarrollo de Aysén (CODESA), which at that time requested to take part in the relevance consultation procedure. But the SEA did not have to respond as the procedure was declared abandoned.

 

CODESA brought this information to the attention of the Regional Government of Aysén, the financier of both the 45 hectares where the project is to be carried out and the funds for the study. Paradoxically, this body has included it as part of the portfolio of projects that operationalize the progress of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Plan 2015-2035, presenting it on August 8 to the Regionalization, Territorial Integration and Environment Commission of the Regional Council .

 

The future of the project today is uncertain. The SEA's argument for declaring it inadmissible, among others, was that it lacks “clarity” to be understood by the public, that “itdoes not present the common and minimum contents of the Environmental Impact Statements”, especially given that it does not “quantify the emissions related to greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcing of the project”. It is even pointed out that the initiative does not clarify why it could be evaluated by means of a Declaration and not by means of an Environmental Impact Study.

 

The tender for the consultancy requires the project to be submitted for environmental assessment, where one of the products of the terms of reference is “obtaining a favorable environmental qualification resolution (RCA)."

 

An objective that, at present, it is not so clear that it can be achieved.