"New Report Gives Mexicans Hope for Long-Awaited Mine Cleanup", 01 October 2023

...Nine years after a massive waste spill from a copper mine in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, locals are still suffering from "alarming" levels of soil, air and water pollution, Mexico's Environment Department said Thursday.

Summarizing a 239-page report, officials also confirmed, using satellite images, that the spill was not solely caused by dramatic rainfall, as was initially reported, but by the "inadequate design" of a dam at Buenavista del Cobre mine, owned by the country's largest copper producer, Grupo México.

Locals and environmental advocates...hope that Grupo México may finally be held financially accountable after almost a decade of legal battles and broken promises...

On Aug. 6, 2014, after heavy rainfall, 40 million liters of acidified copper sulfate flooded from a waste reservoir at Buenavista mine into the Sonora and Bacanuchi rivers, just under 100 kilometers from the border city of Nogales, Sonora.

After the spill, Grupo México first agreed to give 1.2 billion pesos (about $68 million) to a recovery fund, but in 2017 that trust was closed and the remaining funds returned to the mining company, PODER claims. After a legal battle, the trust was reopened three years later but, said Franco, without any new funding...

Since the spill, Buenavista del Cobre has continued to operate...