Senator Alejandro Navarro, during a visit this weekend to Cochrane expressed his rejection to the works that HidroAysen is developing in the southern area of the region, and announced it will consult competent public bodies about the construction of tunnels on the banks of the Baker and Pascua rivers by the electric company thatuntil today, there with the approval of its environmental impact study or the final electrical concession that would allow him to run these jobs. The tunnels (which according to unofficial information would reach the 200 meters each) among other works are taking forward since mid-2008 in the Chacabuco and San Vicente, choked on the Baker and Pascua rivers respectively, points where companies Endesa and Colbun plan to deploy the dams of two of the five mega plants which considers the Aysen hydroelectric project. I’ve been knowing the preliminary work being done by HidroAysen without approved environmental impact study and using actions that we are going to consult in all public bodies. You are developing interventions and surveys that keep the residents of Cochrane, to those who are opposed to the project, and particularly to me as a Senator concerned expressed the parliamentarian, who is a member of the Committee on the environment of the high Chamber. Navarro visited the area as part of a tour of different communes of the Aysen Region, during which he held a meeting with leaders of the grouping of defenders of the spirit of Patagonia and the Mayor of Tortel Bernardo Lopez, in order to gather more background information on the Aysen hydroelectric project and the Patagonia without dams campaignwhose work in the area began at the end of 2005.
The law is equal for all Chileans, and all work to realize a project required authorizations. We are going to make queries to the auditor’s Office, the Ministry of public works and the Ministry of national assets with respect to the work that we have been able to observe, from the facilities, and also through the pictures that have been available to us, and which clearly establish that there is intervention, prospecting, tunnels that are running and which are part of a project that no authorization to be built has not expressed. In November 2008 the lawyers Marcelo Castillo and Macarena Soler, representing owners and residents of the Baker River, filed with court letters Cochrane a demand for environmental damage against HidroAysen, which today is in the pipeline. Alejandro Navarro visits the southern part continued on Sunday in Villa Cerro Castillo, where he met with members of the heirs of the Patagonia grouping, whose members drew the attention of the parliamentary issues that residents have to obtain water rights for their agricultural and livestock activities, by grabbing by electric utilities, to which the parliamentary explained that his presidential proposal includes the nationalization of resources water.