The fall of Guri

More than 30 thousand miners they occupy the river basin of the Caroní, the plan of mining development of Imataca and the electrical laying towards Brazil, they are factors that have affected the volume crisis that undergoes the Guri.

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From the Government it has been tried to give to manifolds explanations to the population by the electrical collapse that is approached, in whose menu includes the generated climatic phenomenon from the Boy; the lack of investment in the electrical area that endorses to the “IV Republic” or the “sabotage” in the electrical centers of production executed by the opposition coup participant and imperialism, among others. The certain thing is that the shock already is in doors and on the subject of the Guri has not existed a scientific diagnosis that explains because it is arrived at these extreme events as a project is not observed future either that avoids to the new generations the drama that lives the country.

First that there is to emphasize it is that in the matter of electrical energy, the last governments, bet in the hydroelectric system of the Guri the future development of the country, with four great dams, when leaving concentrate in that complex 70% of the electrical production of the country.

But to time, that did not project the alternating energy development (from the gas or other resources) programmed great development plans in the own river basin of the Caroní, in mining and metallurgical industry/, whose intervention they would affect the own existence of the hydric resources of the system, that in the case of the Guri, the effects in the hydrologic cycle in the river basin have been the more harmful that the incidence of the Boy.

Although that scheme of development had birth in the governments of democratic era, it take refook and it deepened in the 11 of years of government of Hugo Chavez.

For professor Alexander Luzardo, one of the editors of the Law of the Atmosphere, the crisis of the Guri is the declivity of the project of modernity that began in the decade of the 60, within which was conceived the dam of the Guri, that considered to make great investments in that zone on the base of the existence of great hydric resources.

One of the elements that were contemplated was the development of an industry metallurgical industry/that later is going away to extend with the mining development. And finally it is complemented with the construction of a city like Guayana City, in the same scheme that was conceived Brasilia.

The projects were sustained in the theory of “the development poles” that although for the time had use already began to be questioned. It consisted of developing a certain region and it was radiated there towards the rest of the territory. Soon it begins to be spoken of “development axes” and later it arises modern exposition from viability.

What there is to establish is that for that moment, the Guri was the greater hydroelectric project of the world and the more important engineer installation in the History of Venezuela. According to Luzardo, the Guri was the most important of all the works realised in the period of Perez more important Jiménez and that works constructed in the later periods. It was product of the development of world-wide engineering conceived within the plan of development taken ahead by Betancourt and Perez Alfonso. It was conceived at a time when that type of works was considered the paradigm of engineering, of the planning like were it those of the Mississippi in the United States, in the hydraulic advantage of the great rivers that was developed in different parts from the world.

The great vision

It honors Alexander Luzardo who although the Guri is the engineer installation of greater importance in the History of Venezuela, is one of more importance and has been the great vision of a generation, that was to have decreed Guayana like zone ecologically protected. There the river basin of the Caroní with 96,000 kilometers squared is based, which is equivalent to a greater territory to the one of together Belgium and Holland. The National Park Canaima with three million hectares. The forest reserve of Imataca, that although has productive wood uses, also has protective aims of 3 million 800 thousand hectares. The Sarisariñama park with a surface of 330 thousand hectares. The forest reserve the Caura with 5 million 134 thousand hectares. The natural monuments, or tepuyes decreed in 1991, are one more a figure more rigid than the national park and have constitutional protection with an extension of almost two million hectares.

The South protective zone of the state Bolivar decreed in 1975 with 7 million 262 thousand 358 hectares is the protected zone more extensive of Venezuela. This gives to an average of 80% prote'ge' of the state Bolivar. For the Luzardo environmentalist, that is the great creation of planning that bequeathed the democratic period “and without that there would not be dam”, emphasizes Luzardo.

The desarrollista project

In spite of the use of a language in which terms abound as “endogenous” or “viable” the policy of expansion and poblamiento of the river basin of the Caroní were deepened during the government of Hugo Chavez. One of those emblematic examples was the decree of mining operation in the forest reserve of Imataca.

We remember that decree (1810) approved during the government of Boiler generated reactions of environmentalist and indigenous groups in his against. The project for the mining operation of the mountain range of Imataca was ratified through approved decree 3110 in September of 2004 that it replaced the one of Boiler. The same consecrates the mining in all the levels: small, median and great mining, that the intervention of 40% of the forest reserve of Imataca allows. There it is in perspective the entrance of new companies ligatures to the new dominant class with the new international allies like the Brazilian Russians and with technologies until more harmful and agreements from government to government.

Another case was the continuation and construction of the electrical laying from the Guri to Brazil that crosses the reserve of Imataca and the National Park Canaima, inaugurated by the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela with the attendance of Fidel Castro in August of the year 2000. That year, before the fights carried out by the indigenous communities of the zone, that it was against the construction of that work, Chávez indicated: “The National Government must guarantee the culmination of the electrical laying, in spite of the positions of some radical, anarchical indigenous groups, that are not the majority and that can be being incited by strange people”.

He projected initially contemplated to take electricity from the Guri to the Brazilian city of Manaos with 2.5 million inhabitants, but later he chose himself to only take it until Boavista. With 680 kilometers in length, the laying cost 400 million dollars and spurts to the Brazilian city with 230 KW but that has been reduced in 70% due to the crisis of the hydroelectric complex.

Also the call to the formation of mining cooperatives stands out that took place during the present Government whom a significant increase of the artisan mining activity originated and the illegal one in all the river basin with a considered presence of 30 thousand miners, in its majority Brazilian, Colombian and guyaneses. Later with the idea to revert the big wave of miners who took the zone after the “rackets” from gold and makes shine like diamonds, the minister of the Atmosphere for that moment, Jaqueline Farías, promoted a plan of mining reconversion, that tried to attract the miners towards other viable economic activities, but the plan failed.

The ecological damages

According to the investigator of the University Simon Bolivar, Brave Lelys, and it leaves from the team of scientists that has studied in depth the biodiversity in the river basin of the Caroní, the intervention which has been put under the Great Savannah has altered the hydrologic cycle of the river basin. It maintains the investigator who although the effects of the Boy have affected the climate and the frequency of precipitations in the region, the most serious effects come from the rate of deforestation that replaces forest by savannah, the mining that settles and poisons the water obstacles, the river basin and the dam and the frequent burning fires of the savannah. The investigator explains who the studies that the equipment has realised that the investigator of IVIC Eugene Sanhueza presides over, have determined that a zone burned in that region, requires of three to four years to be recovered.

She observes the importance of protecting the tepuyanos mountainous systems that are related to the volume of precipitations.

For Luzardo, the electrical laying damaged the line of vision of the Eastern chain of tepuyes. It produced unnecessary an environmental impact within a national park and the decreed natural monuments like common Patrimony of the humanity by UNESCO. It generated damages to the mountain range of Motto with the construction of the goad and the positioning of more than 400 towers. It promoted a conflict and division between the town pemón, to part of the economic damage when offering future benefits that never happened.

Without plans

Were predictable the effects of the Boy in the river basin of the Caroní? Certainly thus it was. Not only the scientific sectors of the country alerted on the drought, but also some organisms of the State were conscious than it could happen. It is possible to remember that in 1988 and 1992 severe droughts like effect of the phenomenon took place much more the Boy, nevertheless still the dam could resist his effects.

Beyond the environmental subject in which it has been very clear that the intervention of protected zones, next to the population increase and gas discharges, they are tie agents to the climatic change, the Government did not take care to program an alternating development. To the outside resources for thermoelectrial plants by more were sent than 500 MM$ to Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti and Honduras. Today small plants fed with diesel oil are inaugurated in Venezuela that are more polluting and they will not solve the crisis if the Guri does not recover in short term since they have indicated it several specialists.

folivares@eluniversal.com