{"id":5501,"date":"2026-04-26T16:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T16:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/?p=5501"},"modified":"2026-04-27T17:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T17:38:31","slug":"activista-dragado-del-rio-chiriqui-viejo-es-imperdonable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/activista-dragado-del-rio-chiriqui-viejo-es-imperdonable\/","title":{"rendered":"Activist: Dredging the Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo River is \u201cunforgivable\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Children in the Tierras Altas district celebrated Earth Day on April 22nd while workers were dredging a river just 5 kilometers away. (Haga clic <a href=\"#section-one\">aqu\u00ed<\/a> para acceder a la versi\u00f3n en espa\u00f1ol de este art\u00edculo).<\/p>\n<p>Environmental activist Laura Pedreschi asked how this was possible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Explain to me why, on Earth Day, near Paso Ancho, on the Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo River, they&#8217;re working at full speed, dredging the riverbed, removing the largest rocks, without any apparent state of emergency. Obviously, it&#8217;s a project for the roads that are needed, needed, needed. But if a company is going to make a profit of three million (approximately) for six kilometers of road, let them bring their material from somewhere else, but not from the Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo River near Paso Ancho.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Weyf_REa6gY?si=vNzExmpPYmm6zjns\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s going on? Back in 2023, the entire Volc\u00e1n administration took action and declared that river free of non-metallic mining exploration.&#8221; We collected signatures, raised money, held marches, and even engineer Pachales, who was with MISI, came here. We prevented the exploration of the Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo River near Paso Ancho because it&#8217;s extremely dangerous. Three years later, the Ministry of Public Works (MOP), without having consulted MISI or the Ministry of the Environment, decided to dredge the river upstream.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s unforgivable. And the mayor always ends up taking the fall because he doesn&#8217;t understand that he&#8217;s the highest authority, but Panama always brings him any project that doesn&#8217;t comply with a water scarcity agreement. And well, that&#8217;s how we celebrated Earth Day yesterday in Tierras Altas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve written to everyone from the President of Panama to the United States Ambassador, because you know that everything has to go through them now, right? So you can see that we can&#8217;t keep turning a blind eye. When it comes to the environment, we all have to be careful.&#8221; Environment, the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, the National Institute for Agricultural Development (NIDA), tourism\u2014we can&#8217;t do that dredging here.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s being done without any project approved or endorsed by our dear friend, the Comptroller General of the Republic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-5509\" src=\"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Spanish-language translation by Google Translate is below:<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"section-one\">En Espa\u00f1ol<\/h2>\n<p>Los ni\u00f1os del distrito de Tierras Altas celebraron el D\u00eda de la Tierra el 22 de abril mientras unos trabajadores arrasaban un r\u00edo a tan solo 5 kil\u00f3metros de distancia.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Pedreschi, activista ambiental, pregunt\u00f3 c\u00f3mo era posible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Expl\u00edqueme por qu\u00e9 en el D\u00eda de la Tierra, a la altura de Paso Ancho, en el r\u00edo Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo, a toda m\u00e1quina, est\u00e1n ahondando el r\u00edo Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo, quit\u00e1ndole las m\u00e1s inmensas piedras, sin ning\u00fan aparente estado de emergencia. Obviamente, es un proyecto para las calles que se necesitan, se necesitan, se necesitan. Pero si una empresa se gana por seis kil\u00f3metros de carretera, tres millones redondeando, que traiga su material de otro lado, pero que no lo saque del r\u00edo Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo a la altura de Paso Ancho.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;\u00bfQu\u00e9 pasa? All\u00e1 en el 2023, volc\u00e1n entero se puso las pilas y declar\u00f3 que ese r\u00edo era libre de exploraci\u00f3n minera no met\u00e1lica. Se hicieron firmas, se recolect\u00f3 plata, se hicieron marchas, vino aqu\u00ed el ingeniero Pachales, que era del MISI, y no permitimos que se explorara el r\u00edo Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo a la altura de Paso Ancho, porque es sumamente peligroso. Tres a\u00f1os m\u00e1s, despu\u00e9s se le ocurre al MOP, sin haber conversado seguramente con el MISI ni con Ambiente, dragar el r\u00edo aguas arriba.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Eso es imperdonable. Y siempre el pato lo va a pagar el alcalde, porque el alcalde no entiende que \u00e9l es la m\u00e1xima autoridad, pero de Panam\u00e1 siempre le traen cualquier proyecto que no cumpla con un acuerdo de escasud. Y bueno, as\u00ed celebramos en Tierras Altas el d\u00eda de ayer, el D\u00eda de la Tierra.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nosotros le hemos escrito del presidente de Panam\u00e1 hasta el embajador de los Estados Unidos, porque usted sabe que ahora todo tiene que pasar por ah\u00ed, \u00bfno? Para que vean que no podemos seguir haci\u00e9ndonos los de los ojos cerrados. En tema de Ambiente, todos tenemos que ser cuidadosos. Ambiente, el MOP, el MISI, el NIDA, el turismo, nosotros no podemos hacer ese dragado aqu\u00ed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Est\u00e1 haci\u00e9ndose sin tener ning\u00fan proyecto aprobado ni refrendado por el querido amigo Contrador de la Rep\u00fablica.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Children in the Tierras Altas district celebrated Earth Day on April 22nd while workers were dredging a river just 5 kilometers away. (Haga clic aqu\u00ed para acceder a la versi\u00f3n en espa\u00f1ol de este art\u00edculo). Environmental activist Laura Pedreschi asked how this was possible. &#8220;Explain to me why, on Earth Day, near Paso Ancho, on &#8230; <a title=\"Activist: Dredging the Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo River is \u201cunforgivable\u201d\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/activista-dragado-del-rio-chiriqui-viejo-es-imperdonable\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Activist: Dredging the Chiriqu\u00ed Viejo River is \u201cunforgivable\u201d\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[130,306],"tags":[321,339,338,340,308],"class_list":["post-5501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-panama","tag-chiriqui-viejo-river","tag-dia-de-la-tierra","tag-earth-day","tag-laura-pedreschi","tag-rio-chiriqui-viejo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5501"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5523,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5501\/revisions\/5523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traceyeaton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}