President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered to meet the request of residents of San José del Progreso and collaborators of Cuzcatlán Mining Company (CMC), who asked him to avoid the closure of the San José mining unit, located in that Oaxacan municipality.
Mayor Amador Vázquez Gómez, who represents more than 8,000 inhabitants of San José del Progreso and on behalf of 1,200 miners, approached the president at a hotel in the city of Oaxaca, where he delivered a letter to ask him to intercede with the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), by María Luisa Albores, with the aim of extending the validity of the environmental permit that the mine requires to continue operating.
The president commented that he is aware of the matter and offered to attend to him. “We will see how we solve the problem,” he promised.
The environmental permit to continue operating expired on October 23, but Semarnat has not responded to the request to extend the validity of said document and that has generated uncertainty, so CMC workers promoted a protection that has allowed the operation of the San José mine beyond the expiration date.
In that sense, Vázquez Gómez explained to López Obrador that the mine is underground and its impact on the surface is less, so he asked to intercede with Semarnat, to avoid the loss of more than 1,200 direct jobs and around 8,000 indirect jobs.
After the morning conference and before and after the inauguration of a rural road in San Jerónimo Taviche, President López Obrador was approached by a group of collaborators from CMC, the CTM, as well as residents of San José del Progreso, who They carried banners with messages in favor of their administration and also requesting their support to keep their jobs.
The mayor of San José del Progreso recalled that in more than 10 years, the company received 12 inspections by the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) and in no inspection and resolution records did it indicate acts of contamination of the operations of the mine.
For these environmental and social reasons, as well as for its constant support to the population of San José del Progreso, the mine must continue to operate, said the municipal president.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx