The following reflection is written by Anna Nowalk, a member of the Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus. She completed a Fulbright grant in El Salvador, studying music written about martyrs, and is now an MTS student at Notre Dame on the moral theology track.
When I think of water in El Salvador, I remember staying in a rural area in Morazán, a department in the eastern side of the country. I’d talked with a composer from the area about interviewing him for my research on songs written about Catholic martyrs, and he invited me to stay with his family. The visit was lovely, with the amazing landscape, the space to slow down and breathe, and the opportunity to make personal connections with different members of the family that was hosting me. I was also grateful for the less glamorous experiences: asking with some embarrassment what the ash was for in the outhouse; and taking my first shower with a pila (a sink with clean water coming from a basin below, rather than a tap) and a guacal (a bowl used to scoop up and pour said water).
Despite my strong aversion to cold showers, my pila shower isn’t the experience that stands out: washing my face is. I remembered, from a past visit to a different department, a commitment to water conservation, and so was economical as I splashed water on my skin. One of my hosts, noticing my frugality, told me that I didn’t have to be so careful. “It’s free,” she explained. This household got their water directly from a nearby hill. I was struck by this sense of abundance, one that didn’t seem to lend itself to abuse of this natural resource but was rather an appreciation of it as a gift.
This moment also sharpened my perspective on a threat to Salvadoran well-being: metallic mining. Metallic mining poses serious environmental threats, which not only negatively impact the earth, but also the people who inhabit it. Mining companies use cyanide to remove gold from the rock. Excessive amounts of water are then used to clean the gold, polluting the water. And as if cyanide-polluted water wasn’t bad enough, the Lempa river supplies the majority of the country with water, opening the door to serious issues in the event of widespread contamination. As someone who, for her entire life in the United States, has relied on – and could always rely on — water from a tap, there’s always been a sense of distance between me and the sources of water that sustain me. Being brought so close to the water’s source, I had a new frame to understand mining’s danger.
This past spring, the Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus dove into The Water Defenders, a book written by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh chronicling the fight leading to El Salvador’s 2017 mining prohibition. This victory did not come easily: multiple water defenders were killed in the process. Like the Salvadoran martyrs of the late 20th century, these ecomartyrs were murdered for standing up to projects of death.
Unfortunately, their fight has been renewed: on December 23, 2024, the Salvadoran government overturned reversed its seven-year prohibition on the practice, resulting in outcry from the Salvadoran population (according to one study, almost 60 percent of the Salvadoran population believes their country is inappropriate for mining; more recently, in a study from El Salvador’s national university, 72 percent of respondents rejected metallic mining). The possibility of mining leaves people fearing health conditions from polluted water, displacement due to mining projects, and even another war, should the fight for ecological justice take a violent turn. It is not hard to find posters or banners of protest hung in public. Even the Catholic Church in El Salvador has joined in: I was surprised to hear letters from the Salvadoran hierarchy regarding mining read at the end of Mass on two separate occasions. On March 18, the Church delivered 150,000 signatures it had collected against mining to the Salvadoran government.
The language of Salvadoran resistance on this issue is a clarifying one: perhaps the most popular slogan is “No a la minería, sí a la vida”: No to mining, yes to life. It makes me think of a quote from St. Óscar Romero, who himself was martyred for his prophetic denunciations: “We must defend the minimum gift of God, which is also the maximum: life.” What a wonderful phrase for peacemakers to meditate on. What a strong call to solidarity as well.
#seasonofcreation
For more on the issue:
- Beyond the Iron Fist: Mining the new El Salvador, ReVista (Harvard Review of Latin America)
- ‘Live sick or flee’: pollution fears for El Salvador’s rivers as mining ban lifted, The Guardian
- To live and die for gold: Metals mining returns to El Salvador, El Pais
- Water over gold: 15 reasons why El Salvador should again reject gold mining, Institute for Policy Studies
- El Salvador: Yes to Life, No to Mining campaign, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Thank you for this important a informative article. It is good to know the Salvadoran people themselves are weighing in so decisively on this vital national concern.
With politics such a fundamental part of the situation, it leaves me wondering about the journey taken by the Salvadoran government over the many years that led first to a ban on mining to protect the Country’s essential water supply to the astounding legislative reversal of so many years of responsible policy.
I earnestly hope that the objections and appeals expressed from so many quarters will result as soon as possible in the reestablishment of a genuine stewardship of this treasured gift of nature’s God as intended by our Creator.