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Knowledge Production, Mobilization and Standardization in Chile’s HidroAysén Case

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Abstract

The Aysén Hydroelectric Project in Chilean Patagonia proposed the construction of the country’s largest power facility to supply its capital, nearly 2,000 kilometres away. We seek to explain the way science, politics, law, business and the civilian population are joined up. To this end, we analyse the project’s evolution, the construction of techno-scientific arguments by the participants and how Chilean regulations are adapting to this process.

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Notes

  1. This was the initial estimated cost for the dams; later the price would double due to the cost of the power transmission line.

  2. The company argued that it would later submit a study on the power transmission line.

  3. A few months earlier an organized civil opposition exerted successful political pressure for the annulment of the ‘Barrancones’ thermoelectric project, located in a nature sanctuary in northern Chile.

  4. Endesa, a private company owning 51% of HidroAysén, held almost all the water rights needed to implement the power stations. The opposition to the project also demanded a review of the legislation on industrial water use.

  5. 11.08% of the total installed capacity comes from solar, wind and biomass energy. Information available at: http://energiaabierta.cne.cl/visualizaciones/capacidad-instalada/.

  6. See: http://www.hidroaysen.cl/?page_id=22.

  7. It was originally suggested that the five dams would be in operation by 2025.

  8. The General Bases of the Environment Act, available at: http://www.leychile.cl.

  9. The new environment law (Act 20,417), in force since 2010, does not allow projects to be broken up. Available at http://www.leychile.cl.

  10. Law 19,300 did not demand a ceiling to addenda.

  11. Transport, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Planning, Health, the Economy, the Environment and Public Works.

  12. The CONAMA ceased to exist in 2010 under the new environment law (Act 20,417).

  13. Until 2005 the Water Code encouraged unproductive speculation in water rights, which could be traded even when there was no economic activity.

  14. This service groups all the state’s sectoral services (e.g. the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG)) capable of assessing the impact of certain projects.

  15. The institutional information is available at: http://www.sea.gob.cl/contenido/que-es-el-sistema-de-evaluacion-de-impacto-ambiental.

  16. Punta de Choros is the natural reserve of 80% of Humboldt Penguins worldwide (Cárcamo et al. 2012).

  17. Endesa had begun the preliminary studies for the project before the creation of HidroAysén in 2006.

  18. Media coverage of the dispute materialized in 2006 based mainly on the action of groups opposing the project.

  19. This information is detailed in the project’s EIS (2008).

  20. The baselines presented in the EIS were not the original documents but an edited version.

  21. The state services are accountable to various ministries: e.g. the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) is accountable to the Agriculture Ministry.

  22. Alongside the Agriculture Ministry in the evaluation assessment process were the Ministries for Mining and Energy, Transport, Public Works, Health, Planning, General Secretariat of the Presidency (through the CONAMA).

  23. A case in point was a report commissioned by the DGA from the EULA Centre of the University of Concepción, analysing the baseline submitted by HidroAysén for river basins. Available at: http://www.dga.cl.

  24. Act 20,417 radically alters this situation by creating a Ministry for the Environment one of whose functions is to conduct all the studies necessary to develop the baselines.

  25. According to CONICYT figures, the Aysén region contributed 0.35% of national scientific production between 2008 and 2012.

  26. The environmental descriptions were mainly censuses, cadastres and databases.

  27. Our emphasis.

  28. The figure claimed by the company.

  29. The full environmental description of the project is currently not available, neither on the company’s nor the Environment Ministry’s websites.

  30. Arguments available in the press article at http://www.eldivisadero.cl/noticia-25593.

  31. There was no communication among the state services in the EIS assessment process. For example, the case of amphibians is particularly problematic, as species are dealt with by various services.

  32. Act 20,417 includes a purpose-built service. A law to approve the creation of a ‘Service for Biodiversity and Protected Areas’ accountable to the Ministry for the Environment is currently being processed in the Chilean Congress. The latest information on the proceedings is available at: http://www.proyectogefareasprotegidas.cl/recursos/tramitacion-proyecto-de-ley-sbap/.

  33. The town of Cochrane has 3,000 inhabitants.

  34. Tortel is Chile’s least populated commune: at 0.03 inhabitants per square kilometre, it has just 531 inhabitants.

  35. The new environment law, Act 20,417, establishes civil participation mechanisms that are more inclusive and more decisive in decision-making.

  36. Our fieldwork showed how scientists from the EULA Centre decided not to participate in raising the Aysén Hydroelectric Project’s baseline because as an organization they felt any such activity could not be dissociated from the subsequent EIS.

  37. The main international treaties signed by Chile are the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species on Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. All the treaties are available at: http://www.mma.gob.cl/librobiodiversidad/1308/articles-45421_recurso_3.pdf.

  38. If the Committee reaches no consensus, the new environmental law establishes an Environmental Superintendency and Environmental Courts that have the competence to rule in contentious cases or cases that contravene regulations.

  39. Kreimer (1999) notes that the concept was proposed by Mario Bunge in 1963.

  40. The law states that, if convened, the Committee of Ministers (Energy, Mining, Agriculture and Health) had a sixty-day period to rule on the Supreme Court’s decisions. Given the project’s unpopularity, the Piñera administration suspended this procedure; it was the next administration, Michelle Bachelet’s, that would take the decision to reverse it.

  41. For a more comprehensive analysis on communication strategies, see Broitman (2017).

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank very useful comments made by an anonymous reviewer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Claudio Broitman

  2. CONICET, Universidad Maimónides, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Pablo Kreimer

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  1. Claudio Broitman
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  2. Pablo Kreimer
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Correspondence to Pablo Kreimer.

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Broitman, C., Kreimer, P. Knowledge Production, Mobilization and Standardization in Chile’s HidroAysén Case. Minerva 56, 209–229 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-017-9335-z

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