They launch a preliminary draft of a secondary standard to guarantee the survival of the ecosystems of the Rapel basin – 2024-03-07 02:32:03

The good health of our rivers demonstrates good quality for the different uses that may be given to them. For 15 years, the region has been carrying out a program to monitor the quality of surface waters, among other variables, of the main basins that are the Cachapoal and the Tinguiririca, through work supported by various tables coordinated by the Seremi de Medioambiente, where the public, private services and civil society.

As part of these efforts, these days the competent environmental authority launched the PRELIMINARY DRAFT “SECONDARY STANDARD OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OF THE RAPEL BASIN”, a regulation that seeks not only to protect the quality conditions for the survival of aquatic biodiversity, but that will support the ecosystem services that the basin presents. This legal initiative will allow the quality variables of the two main basins to be reviewed from their source, plus the Rapel Reservoir, and the Rapel River to the area where it flows into the sea.

The beginning of this regulatory process began with its publication in the Official Gazette on February 7, beginning the file and the technical work that includes review of existing information, analysis of monitoring, consultation with various public services and water users. The Minister of the Environment, Giovanna Amaya, referred to the importance of this milestone and the need to have this regulation. “It is very timely regarding the context of climate change in the region,” she said, recalling that last October the first Regional Climate Change Action Plan (PARCC) was launched in the O’Higgins Region.

“We have a hydrography that constantly changes, and that is why it is necessary and urgent to have regulation that ensures the survival of the ecosystems that inhabit the Tinguiririca and Cachapoal rivers, since both reach the Rapel basin,” explained Amaya, addressing the character mining-agricultural par excellence that this region has. Furthermore, its implementation will be important – Amaya continues – because, for example, “a project that is submitted to the environmental impact evaluation system, must comply with this secondary standard, once approved.”

This preliminary project will gather information on twenty environmental components such as, for example, oxygen, pH, salinity, suspended solids, nutrients, phosphorus, nitrogen, etc., in 15 points in the region, from their source in the high mountain range to their mouth. “These parameters are much more demanding than the current emissions standard of Decree 90, which is what almost all companies comply with,” he indicated and then recounted the final project and the secondary standard that is approved by the Government. Once the preliminary project is ready, it must be subject to economic analysis and its impact at a social level. “We hope in the short term, at the end of this year, to have the final project so that it can undergo social and economic evaluation and present it to the council of ministers.”