Environmentalist Domingo Abreu speculates on the real reasons behind the determination to build a new roadway between Santiago and San Juan de la Maguana, linking the southwest and the northwest. Former Minister of Environment Frank Moya Pons has said there are already five roadways and that it would be more cost-effective for the government to just repair one of them and has recommended the Padre de las Casas routes. Environmentalist Domingo Abreu says that while in the past promoters were just looking for a profitable government contract, the reasons today are different. “Now the Cibao-Sur highway would have a second objective: to open up the Central Mountain Range mining on a massive scale. He says it would be a gateway to the gold, silver and copper beltway that extends along the mountain range, according to projections by several mega mining companies that seek to exploit the beltway.
He warns that this would create “an infernal chain of tailing dams for cyanide waste, transforming what is now an enormous factory of water and health that is our Cordillera Central into a factory of poison, pollution and disease for centuries to come.
He warns that allowing mega mining in the Central Mountain Range would alter our geological formation, its natural relief would disappear with the toppling of hundreds of hills and mountains, and the central rain cycle of the country, and all its wind system would be altered.
He mentions that the timber industry would move in to take advantage of so many possibilities for “economic growth” and “sustainable development” and would seek new ventures in the free market economy.
Abreu writes against mega mining and the use of cyanide in any area of the country or the island. “The Dominican Republic is committed to the production of food,” he writes. “Dominicans are committed to the territory and to integrity.”