By Susan Munroe 
I am officially in Patagonia: Puerto Varas, on the southern shore of Lake Llanquehue, a small, touristy town famous for its proximity to two massive volcanoes, Osorno and Cabulco. It feels good to wear long pants and fleece again! Good to be out of the city.
The closer I get to Aysen, the region that will be effected if HidroAysen is able to gain permission to build its 5 dams and 2,300km transmission line, the more heated the debate becomes. The local paper's front page yesterday announced the latest move by the binational corporation, HidroAysen. Although the proposal for the dams is still sitting in limbo in Chile's Supreme Court, and the company has yet to produce an environmental impact statement for the associated tranmssion line to carry elecricity from the generators to the consumers (2,300km), the company has begun a campaign of open meetings in the various communities that would be effected by the transmission line. The government applauds the company's "initiative" and discusses the campaign in terms of "transparency", but the opposition criticizes the "arrogance" of the company for moving ahead as if they are confident that they will win approval. The company's spokesperson took an exasperated, defensive tone, inviting the leaders of the "Patagonia Sin Represas" movement to come to any one of the meetings to see that they are simply trying to include all of the citizens in the planning process, to avoid conflicts and mitigate the effects of the project.
My Twitter news feed is running wild this morning after a TV series called "Porque En Mi Jardin" (Why In MY Garden) aired an episode on the debate last night. One person called the episode "shameful". Others quoted and disputed lines from the program "Against hydroelectricity? NO! Against mega-dams thousands of kms from the point of consumption? Yes!" Antonio Horath Guitierrez, president of Aysen Futuro, a local development group, pointed out that although HidroAysen emphasized the small size (and therefore small impact) of their reservoirs, they avoided discussing the impacts of the long transmission line.
@Chileconenergia, Hidroysen's Twitter handle, was notably absent from my news feed. A quick search found their own list of recent tweets and @mentions completely dominated by abuse, obscenity, and inarticulate protests from other Twitter users. Wisely choosing not to justify the comments with a response, the only tweet from the official camp is a quote from Maria Irene Soto, chief of communications (whom I met with two weeks ago) saying "We are very pleased with the response and participation of the community," and a link to an extended article on their blog about the open house campaign in the south.
My goal for this week in Puerto Varas: meet with the three judges of the Puerto Montt appeals court who voted 2:1 to reject the seven articles of appeal filed by the Patagonia Sin Represas lawyers earlier this summer. I want to ask them one simple question: why did you vote yes or no? I'm hoping to engage them in a conversation that will show who they are as people, not only ministers of justice. What influenced their decisions?
Posted by Susan Munroe on 12/08/11
