Patagonians say no to an invasive gold mine. (Environmental Intelligence).

Residents of the town of Esquel, Argentina voted last March not to approve the digging of a proposed open-pit gold mine near their town. The vote was a major setback to the Canadian mining firm that has been planning to work there. Seventy-five percent of the town's 28,000 eligible residents came to the polls to vote, and over 80 percent voted against the mine.

The $100 million Esquel Gold Project would be constructed in the upper reaches of the Andes in the southern section of Argentina, eight kilometers from Esquel. Both the mine and the town are located in the scenic Chubut province, known popularly as Patagonia. The Los Alerces National Park, 32 kilometers from the proposed mine, is home to the alerce tree, a relative of California's giant sequoias.

For most Esquel residents, water quality issues dominate the debate. Fernando Diaz, a Buenos Aires-based geologist, determined that the mine could use up to one-third of an important local aquifer. Others worry that the mine could contaminate streams feeding the local reservoir, Lake Williamanco. Like most gold mines, Meridian's project would use cyanide to extract the gold from crushed ore, and residents say that water contamination issues have not been appropriately dealt with in the mine's environmental impact assessment

The results of the referendum are nonbinding, but could significantly affect the outcome through their impact on the company's stock market performance. A precedent was established in June 2002 in Tambogrande, Peru, where a similar vote-to block a gold mine proposed by Canadian-based Manhattan Minerals-caused that company's stock price to drop by 28 percent the next day.

In Esquel, city council member Matilde Lenzano described the tactics Meridian had used to try to win the community's favor: "They gave money to buy merchandise (meat, school supplies, etc.) to give away in neighborhoods with high unemployment. During support marches, they brought in people from [the industrial port city of] Comodoro Rivadavia to increase the number of supporters for the mine. All these actions were done by paying the people to pronounce themselves in favor. The corporation behaved shamelessly."