Patagonia Defense Council
At 11 o’clock on today the legal team of the Patagonia Defense Council, representing 19 national and regional organizations, entered in the offices of the regional Directorate of the national environment Commission (Conama) a requirement so that the Regional Environmental Commission (Corema) reject the environmental impact (EIA) study of HidroAysen because in their elaboration it did not comply with the minimum contents required by the applicable environmental legislation. So reported the lawyer Marcelo Castillo, who explained that the writing of more than 180 pages, gives background and arguments that demonstrate that from the moment in which the Mayor and President of the Corema, Selim Carrasco, decided by itself and before it will develop the Icsara, without a vote of this collegiate body, the process is illegal. Added the jurist who is applying in practice is that the Corema sessions and take the only possible decision, that is to reject the EIA given that this does not it complies with the institutions established within the framework of the environmental assessment, as confirmed by the own technical reports of bodies with environmental competition. And this is not solved with an addendum, thus making reference to the document whose deadline for submission by the company, ends next week. Marcelo Castillo noted that this illegality is imprescriptible, and insubsanable by which the Corema members are in the legal obligation to comply with this requirement. In the opinion of counsel need that parties involved in environmental assessments have clarity of the Coremas, as demonstrated in Campiche, they do not resolve in the final analysis, since they always have to adhere to the law finally, he indicated that this request is a call to respect the technical work that so far have made public services, and is based on the request that communities themselves have made so that respect for their right to live in a free environment pollution, even more so when the addendum will mean in practice a new EIA in which citizenship will not be entitled to a public participation process.