The Struggle for Environmental Protection in Western El Salvador

By Guadalupe Cortés Vega, SHARE Advocacy Director

Fredy Moisés Hernandez Ménéndez is 28 years old, but looks much older. Due to his family’s financial constraints, he has only a fourth grade education. As an adolescent, he worked for five years for Salvanatura as a guard on the Parque Imposible nature reserve, where he met his wife, Ana Gloria. Both are originally from the Department of Ahuachapán, where they lived, along with their families, on the property of a coffee plantation. There, the families lived in abject poverty and were forced from their homes when the owner experienced economic hardships. They decided to relocate to Chalchuapa in search of work.

Fredy and Ana Gloria now live in a poor and deforested community called San Jose, in a humble adobe house with their three children, of 10, 8 and 2 years of age. Although they are paying to live on the property, they lack basic services such as water, electricity and a sewage system. These circumstances are all too common in El Salvador, and the struggles of Fredy and his family mirror the struggles throughout the country for environmental justice. To address these issues, SHARE is supporting an organization called CREDHO, which advocate for stronger environmental standards throughout Western El Salvador.

Fredy is now Vice President of the San Jose Community Development Association. From his previous experience at the nature reserve, he learned to respect and appreciate the environement. Although he works as a bricklayer now, he finds time to return to Chalchuapa in order to participate in CREDHO’s educational activities. CREDHO has given him the opportunity to support environmental protection on behalf of his community. He values the trainings he has received and declared, "if the communities and institutions (like CREDHO and SHARE) did not act, the owners of big business would have plundered all the natural resources and the Public Prosecutor would never have known".

On March 5, 2008, I accompanied a representative of Santa Ana’s Environmental Public Prosecutors Office on a follow-up visit after receiving complaints from several communities in Chalchuapa and CREDHO, regarding pollution in the area. We went to investigate these complaints with the public prosecutor and several members of civil society in the region. What I saw on this visit reinforced Fredy’s comments about the important role of civil society in protecting natural resources.

Our first visit was to the Cuzcachapa Cooperative, which has 1,300 associates. They produce 1,077 metric tons of coffee per month, which is roasted and packaged for international markets, specifically the US and Europe. The manager of the cooperative, Mr. Zaldaña, showed us where they stored their agro-industrial waste, retention ponds for the coffee wastewater and specified areas for the coffee berry pulp. Anaerobic digesters and lime are used to reduce contaminants and neutralize the odor of the wastewater. The water is then used to irrigate the coffee fields. At the end of the retaining ponds is a stream that leads to Pampe River.

According to the public prosecutor, this is his fourth visit and he has observed the cooperative’s compliance with the recommendation set by the Ministry of Environmental and Natural Resources (MARN). Furthermore, they still need to improve their water treatment methods. He has scheduled another survey of the cooperative before his final report.

Next we visited an area where the river, the residual waters of the cooperative and the sewer systems’ of several colonies of Chalchuapa and a nearby hospital meet. Here we saw high levels of pollution in the water.

Another tributary of the Pampe river, known by locals as Jumún, is known for its algae and small fish. On our visit we noticed several women washing clothes in the river. A local told us he believes the river to be polluted on account of lower number of available fish. He also speculated that the MARN will do little about the pollution. Last year, SHARE supported a study of the water. The test showed high levels of lead. Although signs of agro-industrial waste did not show up in that study, individual pollutants such as detergent and household waste were present.

I asked the public prosecutor about the water treatment plant to the closest urban city, Ciudad Real. The public prosecutor confided in us that, in his experience, it was common for treatment plants not to run their machines to cut down on costs. In El Salvador, public institutions do not have technical or human resources from the state to monitor operations, which makes detecting and prosecuting environmental crimes difficult.

Our next visit was to a sugar-processing plant, La Magdalena, located on the side of the Chingo volcano, near the Magdalena River. When we arrived, we saw piles of sugarcane ash, commonly used for fertilizer, some retaining ponds and a treatment plant for the wastewater (utilizing the same anaerobic digester and lime techniques to clean the water as the cooperative did). The public prosecutor commented that La Magdalena has improved its treatment of its agro-industrial waste, considering they used to directly dump untreated wastewater into the Magdalena River. The engineer of the sugar-processing plant promised to continue complying by the recommendations of MARN and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, promising that after the next harvest they would install filters in the chimney.

SHARE’s investigation of the water detected lead, and according to the public prosecutor, when lead is detected, the investigation becomes more complex and expensive. At the present time, we cannot determine the cause. The next step is to conduct a hydroelectric and ground study. It seems possible that illegal pesticides are being used; these pesticides contain lead.

Reforestation was another matter. The owners of the plant have noticed that the level of the river every year is lower due to deforestation and they have responded by taking appropriate initiatives to address the matter.

The Cuzcachapa Cooperative and at La Magdalena sugar-processing plant did not change their business practices by their own virtue, but through community pressure and the aid of the Office of the Public Prosecutor to protect the community’s water supply. SHARE’s partner, CREDHO has played a very important role in supporting these communities, providing information and organization to the community, managing water analysis and by providing institutional support to the Office of the Public Prosecutor. It is also important to mention that the Public Prosecutor Luis Mateo Marroquín is an ally in this struggle for social and environmental protection.