Omar Lacoste. At the beginning of the interview, Omar stated that ACUMAR is no longer carrying out the cleanup of Arroyo Don Mario: “the concern is great but we also cannot ignore that approximately a month ago the Supreme Court of Justice ended the follow-up of the ACUMAR case. This seems to me to be somewhat inappropriate and I believe that at this moment there is an appeal in this regard that could reach the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The truth is that this goes hand in hand with the consequences of the lack of funding of the National Government.
“We are beginning to experience an explosive cocktail in environmental matters. President Milei has taken out the credentials of all the Argentine participants in the International Environmental Summit that has been brewing until a few days ago. So everything has to do with a development in the policies of the National State that has abandoned in environmental matters something that had been developing for many years as a priority policy,” he added.
ACUMAR without financing
“Defunding ACUMAR means, so as not to subjectivize only in the matter of ACUMAR, something like a month and a half ago, the National State also gave the cessation to a decentralized organization like ENOHSA in charge of financing the development of drinking water throughout the length and breadth of the Argentine Republic. I could tell you that ACUMAR is in that same situation with the defunding like so many other organizations that correspond to the National State,” he clarified.
And he detailed: “It has to do with a policy that the State has been carrying out. The last action that we were able to have on Don Mario with ACUMAR was in the month of September where we were able to have two days of intervention on the central channel from the open-air opening to route 21. That is, that could be given as a last element, I would say almost exceptional. Now, if the neighbors’ concern is true, the banks are not cleaned anymore.”
Regarding the financing of the cooperatives, Lacoste said that “in La Matanza, ACUMAR was financing twelve cooperatives. Twelve cooperatives that had as their main objective cleaning up the banks of the different streams, but of those twelve cooperatives only three remain, which are destined for the central bank of the Matanza River, from the La Noria bridge to the end of the island in La Salada. The bank of the central channel of the Matanza River in that sector is the only one that ACUMAR has not abandoned.”
The actions of the Province and the municipality
“The province is living with deep concern about this issue and is trying to find a way out of this void that the national government has left with the scarce resources that the province has at this time, which does not even have the possibility of receiving co-participation. Furthermore, the national State has also stopped financing those foods that were intended for the most disadvantaged and needy sectors of our population, especially at this time when we all know that the latest poverty measurements in Argentina have exceeded more than 55% of our population. I represent the municipality of La Matanza in ACUMAR, but I belong to the local government, and from the municipality we are trying with the very scarce resources that this economic crisis has left us, to be able to alleviate and try to move forward with this situation, because the truth is that abandoning environmental policies seems to me to be a step backwards”
He also highlighted that “at this point in the year, the municipality of La Matanza has collected 45% of the service fees over the 100% it collected last year, that is, the economic situation, not only of La Matanza, but of all the municipalities of the province of Buenos Aires, has left the entire province in a situation that maybe people from the Ministry of Economy of the province of Buenos Aires can tell you more clearly, but I know that all efforts are being made to fix a situation that is beginning to be more than serious. And that is reflected in the municipality, that the scarce resources that are available are being used for some minor work or are almost exclusively devoted to the food issue as the main element of the terrible poverty crisis that is advancing at an accelerated pace, not only in La Matanza, but in the entire region.”
“In principle, I do not want to generate false expectations for society as a first point. Then, I can tell you what we had with ACUMAR until December 9, 2023. Surely a lot of things would be missing, I have no doubt about that, like everything we know is missing in Argentina, but in environmental matters we already had heavy machinery in this municipality, in the first half of the year for four months
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