Abstract
This article focuses on the ways in which environmental degradation occurs, is publicized and “managed” in urban areas. It examines the perspectives and the actions undertaken by the various social actors in these conditions. This analysis is based on a case study of the port town of Ingeniero White in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ingeniero White has a deep-water port, several large grain terminals, and a large petrochemical complex. The analysis reveals the forms of popular organization, which have opposed the environmental degradation in this urban setting. This case study is based on past research, official reports, press articles, and in-depth interviews with local actors.
Introduction
This article analyses the modes of organization which people use when they confront environmental risks in cities and towns undergoing environmental degradation. In this case, the focus of analysis is on the port city of Ingeniero White (Figure 1), which is located in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. This city has a relatively small population of 12,700 residents and another 5,800 inhabitants live in the immediate surroundings. They are exposed to air, noise, and water pollution generated by the local industrial complex, which has adversely impacted the local ecosystem, human health, and the economic activities in this urban area. In this context, social manifestations of discontent and demands for significant changes have arisen during specific episodes of environmental pollution followed by long relatively passive periods of little or no mobilization and demands for change.
This article is structured as follows: first, we present a section with basic facts that offer a contextual framework for this case study. The second section reviews the available sources of information on this case and provides the conceptual framework on which the analysis of this case study is grounded. The third section provides the findings of this study, and the final section provides the author’s concluding considerations.
Origin and Current Situation of Environmental Degradation in Ingeniero White
The port of Ingeniero White was inaugurated in 1885 during the height of Argentina’s agro-export economic development period. The population was initially composed of European immigrants who settled in the area. They were attracted by the construction of the railway and port facilities. During the 1920s and 1930s, the area gained new momentum with the installation of an oil refinery, a lubricant and kerosene plant, and an electric power station. Toward the middle of the twentieth century, the port provided refrigerated storage and shipping facilities for a variety of tradable commodities (meat, cereals, fruit, fish, wool), and numerous households linked to the local artisanal fishing industry were established in the town. In addition, the coast line in the area offered beaches, sport fishing, and other recreational opportunities, and so on (Rosake & Ercolani, 2012).
The port was modified during the 1980s with the inauguration of a petrochemical complex called El Complejo Petroquímica Bahía Blanca (in 1981) with six linked factories, and a new thermoelectric plant (in 1988). These investments were carried out with participation of state capital. After the startup of the first establishments of the petrochemical complex, the local government permitted the construction of a housing neighborhood located less than 150 m from the new industrial facilities, closer than recommended by international standards because of the risk of exposure to potentially severe events in the complex.
In the mid-1990s, as a part of a program of financial and economic liberalization that took place nationwide in Argentina, the industrial complex was privatized and multinational corporations (Dow, Solvay) took control of the plants. In the same period, as part of the neo-liberal governmental reforms, the management of the country’s national ports was decentralized from the national to provincial authorities. They created non-governmental entities to fulfill this task, which involved the participation of the private corporate actors linked to the ports. Thus, since September 1993, the Bahia Blanca Port Management Consortium (CGPBB, as per its initials in Spanish) has controlled the various operations that take place in the local port. 1
After this decentralization and privatization, the new operators carried out a plan of capacity expansion, which ended in 2001 with the opening of a new ethane and hydrocarbon production plant (called Compañía Mega), and in the same year, a fertilizer factory (called Profertil) joined the complex. The succession of new investments continued in 2008 with the arrival of a regasification vessel, part of Mega’s business, which operated until 2018 and has resumed recently in 2021.
In 2021, 18 million tons of goods and 833 vessels moved through this port as the result of an upward trend since 2004 (see CGPBB website). Currently, the port’s activities extend along 25 km of coastline in an area the size of 33 km 2 . The population directly affected by the port activities and the industrial complex is composed of the residents of Ingeniero White town (12,700 inhabitants) and the neighborhoods of Villa Delfina (4,260 inhabitants) and Loma Paraguaya (1,531 inhabitants). The population of the area and the workers of the port and plants have been exposed to various contaminates and adverse environmental events, some of them tragic, all linked to the industrial activity in this area.
Between 1985 and 2018, 31 fatal work accidents were recorded in the different industrial facilities located in the port and the petrochemical complex. In addition to these occupational deaths, there have been many other harmful effects suffered by the local population due to the noise, odors, water pollution, and gaseous emissions produced by the local industries (Iommi, 2017). Detrimental health and environmental impacts (e.g., disturbance of marine species and poor water quality) have been reported by Carignano et al. (2009), Botté et al. (2008), Ramborger and Lorda (2009), and Fernández-Severini et al. (2013). 2 Moreover, the petrochemical and agro-industrial complex has harmed other economic activities (Gorenstein, 1998; Noceti, 2017). The local evidence accords with that collected by Mudu et al. (2014) about the effects of these industries on the environment, the health of the surrounding population, and development of the urban area where these activities are located.
The characteristics of the major economic activities that take place in the local port and its expansion over the last three decades have created the conditions for social conflict, latent and effective, originating in the environmental harms suffered by the local population and nearby neighborhoods. This article will describe the ways in which this social conflict has manifested itself and analyse the scope, effects, and limitations of this conflict.
Sources and Theory
The relationship between Ingeniero White’s productive activities, their impact on the ecosystem, the reaction of various social groups, and the response of the companies and government agencies involved have been addressed through dispersed research efforts and disseminated in different formats. Obstacles posed by the companies have limited the publication of research findings in the academic sphere, so the journalistic media and social networks have produced most of the information on this subject.
The author has found, compiled, and analysed most of the secondary sources available on this subject (i.e., academic articles and theses, reports from regulatory bodies, and newspaper articles). In addition, in-depth and lengthy interviews were conducted with local actors who were territorially and/or occupationally connected to the industrial complex: workers in the plants, residents, artisanal fishermen, and local teachers who did and did not participate actively in protests against the environmental degradation of Ingeniero White.
In the following pages, the conditions that gave rise to and the fall of conflicts, the structure of the popular movements that carried out protests against pollution, the content of their demands, methods of struggle, and the responses from the companies and government authorities (either local or provincial) are identified and analysed. The theoretical approach used to frame and explain these actions and actors adheres to a radical or classist strand of ecological economics, according to the classification proposed by Barkin et al. (2012).
This perspective is opposed to two other views that, together, dominate the academic and political sphere. On the one hand, there is the neo-liberal perspective which contends that environmental degradation emerges due to the absence of free markets. Since coastal ecosystems and their elements are not traded in a free market, they do not have a reference value and their degradation cannot be included in business decisions. This approach usually applies methodologies that pursue the estimation of the economic value of negative elements (pollution) and positive elements (ecosystem services of certain sites) and proposes the adoption of price-based schemes (e.g., taxes on pollutants and subsidies for environmentally healthy activities).
On the other hand, the reformist perspective recognizes the negative effects of capitalist production on the environment and recommends corrective measures based on governmental regulations (i.e., legal prohibitions, penalty fees, regulation of land uses, and production parameters).
The radical view contrasts with both approaches insofar as this perspective unveils the social relations of production underlying the devastation of natural resources and the degradation of living conditions.
The dominant schools of thought in the field of ecological economics underestimate in differing degrees the role of social struggle in propelling state interventions in environmental issues as well as the contradictions that capitalism faces with regard to addressing environmental sustainability (Foladori, 1999). Whereas the neo-liberal perspective overestimates the effect of taxes and subsidies on production plans and adoption of green technologies, an environmentally damaging but economically profitable technology can lead companies to pay higher taxes for polluting without stopping its devastating effects. Similarly, the high level of subsidies required to stimulate the effective adoption of clean technologies can severely imbalance fiscal accounts.
Regarding the norms limiting the environmental consequences of private activities, the classist approach considers that they underestimate the fact that those who must execute regulations access and remain in power because they are driven by the same economic interests that they themselves must control. Consequently, the regulatory option becomes less effective as a way to limit or repair ecological damage (Foladori, 2005).
The radical perspective holds that the “enforcement” of environmental regulatory laws does not depend so much on the institutional quality of the governmental entities where they are adopted, but on the strength and capacity of collective organization of those who suffer their consequences. As Harvey (2008) has pointed out, the reparations for the victims, taxes, or penalties, and everything that builds the “right to the city” does not arise from intellectual circles, but from class confrontation.
Finally, popular movements should not necessarily be enclosed in formal organizations to achieve genuine participation or attain community-centered decisions. As stated by Titz et al. (2018), those types of practical mechanisms aimed to mitigate vulnerability could mask its root causes. In addition, when referring to the community’s capacity for mobilization and organization, even in disasters affecting great portions of territory, is a romantic vision which sees the community as a homogenous body, with common goals and free of contradictions (Faas & Marino, 2020).
In contrast, heterogeneity is a key feature of the social movements involved in environmental issues (Diani, 2003). Classist’s views highlight the role of mobilization and organization of environmentally oppressed populations. But it remains to unknown which organizational forms, demands, and methods of struggle are capable of achieving and maintaining effective conquests in the environmental dimension.
Since the 1970s, the urban and port areas of Ingeniero White have undergone a spatial integration between production, residence, and recreation (Ferrera, 2002). Even though the activities that took place there were not ecologically innocuous (a refinery, coal-fired power station, meat processing, and so on), the population did not express discontent with them. Environmental issues were not part of the social agenda at the time. Social conflicts then had the classic character of confrontations between capital and labor (Becher & Martin, 2019). Since then there have been four main moments in the heightening of social demands related to the environmental risks of the local population. They are discussed below.
Cracks in the Walls and Floors of Houses and Streets, 1982
The first record of social conflict in Ingeniero White dates from 1982, when residents detected more than 150 buildings with cracks in walls and floors that occurred in a period of a few days (La Nueva Provincia, 1982). As a result of the mobilization of the residents, the municipal government commissioned a technical study to detect the cause of the problem. That report eventually attributed the cracks to the lessening of groundwater, but did not identify who was responsible. For the residents the cause emerged from the works conducted during the construction of the thermoelectric plant, which began in 1979 and took place on land gained from the sea by sand replenishment. Based on the sinking pattern of the land, residents claimed that those works carried out pumping that formed a channel through which seawater began to drain (La Nueva, 2014). The municipal government provided funds for the repair of houses, but they were granted late and selectively. Improvements were also temporary as funds were insufficient to carry out major reforms.
For 18 years, the discontent did not cease, but it was manifested in isolated statements without reaching the status of collective action. In 1996, in this context of latency, big companies and the government launched a program (Awareness and Preparedness for Emergencies at the Local Level, APELL) designed by the United Nations in 1988, to prepare the local community for emergencies (UN Environment, 2015). 3 At the local level, the program is limited to training actions that indicate what to do in cases of emergencies and there is an alarm every Thursday at 11 am to remind the residents of the self-protection measures they should take in the case of dangerous events.
Chlorine and Ammonia Leaks in 2000
The level of mobilization and organization of the local community increased notably after two chlorine and ammonia leaks that occurred in 2000. The APELL program lost legitimacy due to the lack of activation of the alarm. Organized neighbors, environmental and anarchist groups, student centers, and left-wing parties held mobilizations and community assemblies. These protests arose in a context of widespread impoverishment and job losses. The community then not only reacted to the leaks, but also to the results of privatization and state reforms that took place during the 1990s, which, by the year 2000, resulted in 17% of unemployment and 12.5% of underemployment in the area. The leaks exposed the lack of any positive spillovers from port growth to community development (Heredia Chaz, 2014).
However, the threat of job suspensions and dismissals by Profertil in September 2000 caused a confrontation between the leaders of the labor unions and the community groups, over the trade-off between pollution and unemployment. This undermined the community organizations and led to the emergence of different groups (Becher & Klappenbach, 2014). The proliferation of various civil associations (Table 1) evidences the dissidence that emerged in the protests.
Community Organizations Against Environmental Degradation.
While what brought the community together was the repudiation of pollution and the negligence of the companies and authorities, the central content of the demands (plant closures, controls, or subsidies for those affected) divided the popular organizations. The emergence of differences also responds to a distinction proposed by some left-wing parties and anarchist groups that, in their interventions in community assemblies, tried to link pollution to the social order and production mode.
The radicalization of the methods and complaints derived from those positions came into tension with less politicized forces that pursued a less conflictive pathway or less personal exposure. Thus, for example, a resident who actively participated in assemblies stated,
One thing that generated disinterest in the neighbors who attended the meetings was the intervention of political parties, trying to impose an agenda with long speeches about exploitation and issues that were far from our day-today situations. As the political parties began to occupy more and more space in the assemblies and proposed confronting slogans, several neighbors lost interest and stopped going. (Retired resident, interview February 8, 2019).
The community resorted to strong confrontation methods (street protests, mobilizations, and so on) immediately after the environmental incidents, but later they began to consider legal and institutional options (trials, demands, petitions) and educational activities (seminars, propaganda in the streets) organized jointly with environmental movements. The shift from political to cultural actions was also noticed by Jamison (2001), who questions whether environmentalism is a social movement.
For example, AU20AGO filed together with AVCO a collective application for a judicial order—an amparo—against Profertil for potential damages emerging from the ammonia and CO2 leak in April 2003. The path of this legal action was not expeditious or direct; 4 years after the incident, the court found the company guilty but the penalty consisted of the submission of a report with details about control protocols related to materials entering its storage facilities. Failure to comply with this decision would result in an external audit and a penalty of about $1,600 daily that represented only 0.2% of the company’s daily turnover.
Another common feature of community associations is the gradual decline in their activities and communications and the concentration of their leadership on one or two representatives. If any of them faced personal problems, the group virtually disappeared from the local scene. For that reason, these associations have been politically inactive for the last decade. In some sense, as Diani and Rambaldo (2007) pointed out, the lack of cohesive networks enquiries the very nature of the notion of social movements.
However, the intense popular mobilization and its media coverage originated by the chlorine and ammonia leaks in 2000 attained a rapid response from the provincial and local authorities. After the leaks, provincial law 12530 was passed, which transferred control to the municipality through two new bodies: the Executive Technical Committee (ETC) and the Control and Monitoring Committee (CMC). The ETC must control the emission of gaseous substances and disturbing noises and the discharge of effluents into the estuary according to standards. It is financed with an environmental tax of 0.04% of companies turnover (Dobal, 2015). Operationally, the ETC reports to provincial authorities the infractions of companies, but it is not allowed to impose penalties for environmental offenders. That role belongs to the Provincial Bureau of Sustainable Development (PBSD). 4
In turn, the CMC is a consultative space composed of representatives of the local government, companies, universities, unions, and community associations, whose mission is to warn of risks and guide the actions of the ETC. In addition, the social organizations that participate in the CMC receive funds from the environmental tax. In 2010, the director of the ETC admitted the effectiveness of popular pressure to get government to exercise greater control over company security regulations (Dobal, 2015). However, this popular power is still limited; the reports of the CMC meetings show: (a) obstacles faced by the ETC to collect measurements of air concentrations of certain polluting substances on a regular basis; (b) repeated absences of several representatives, insufficient quorum and low compliance with their roles; and (c) a lower frequency of meetings since mid-2018. 5 The CMC has evolved into a more bureaucratic space than one for active community participation, as recognized by two of the associations that take part of it (Scandizzo, 2005).
In contrast, the PBSD has been widely questioned for minimizing the results of studies about environmental degradation commissioned by affected parties, exerting pressure on their inspectors 6 and delaying or allowing expiration of penalties based on ETC’s reports. The following case illustrates the inefficacy of control actions: in April 2011, the ETC reported an infraction by the Polisur plant due to an emission of black smoke, the PBSD issued the penalty in May 2012, and the company was notified in November 2013. The firm appealed the penalty, which was sustained in November 2015. In December 2015, the case entered the Correctional Court no. 1 of the Criminal Chamber, which issued a ruling against the company in March 2016.
However, the judge exempted the firm from payment because the case was barred by the statute of limitations. 7 In the same act, the judge recommended investigating the PBSD for apparent delay in sanctioning procedures against companies that lead to the subsequent expiration of penalties (La Nueva, 2016). Until that warning, the local PBSD delegation has been working in the offices of the Bahia Blanca Industrial Union, a corporate institution representing the private sector, including the petrochemical companies as active members. That location fueled suspicions about the lack of independence between PBSD’s decisions and companies’ interests it had to monitor (La Nueva, 2014 ).
The ETC periodically publishes reports on different aspects related to local environmental conditions. In theory, these reports should make available to the authorities and the population evidence about the quality of the ecosystem and the related risks, but the technical terms used mean that only experts can qualitatively assess their results, blocking access to information to potentially more affected groups. The reluctance of companies, governments, and control authorities to spread clear and accessible information on the events and infringements produced in the petrochemical and cereal plants located in the port, is a factor of population vulnerability, which adds to the degraded living conditions (Gentili et al., 2018).
The Crisis of Artisanal Fishing, 2009
A third wave of upsurge in social conflicts occurred in December 2009, when Ingeniero White’s artisanal fishermen mobilized, blocking access to the port. The demands included a compensatory subsidy for the reduction in fish catches during 2008–2009, a non-refundable loan for reconversion of the fleet and the cleaning of the estuary. The protest was repressed by the police and several participants were arrested. The state proposed an agreement between the parties (provincial authorities, CGPBB, and fishermen associations) that included most of the demands. However, the terms of the agreement and PBSD’s public statements minimizing the perception about the severity of the pollution and its impact on artisanal fishing opened an extensive period of negotiation, causing the conflict to end in 2012. The compensation program for fishermen and the conversion of their fleet to access more distant fishing areas was carried out between December 2012 and December 2015 (Speake et al., 2020). As funds were decided in nominal terms and their execution took place in an inflationary context, in a period of 3 years, only 25% of the planned vessels could be converted. Essentially, the transfer of funds to fishermen did not reach sufficient magnitudes for the permanent abandonment of the activity or the sustainability of those who chose to remain in it (Truchet, 2018). For this reason, some fishermen have returned to the activity in illegal conditions (without permits; Noceti, 2017).
The oppositions to the central aspects of the agreement, the form of negotiation (individual between CGPBB and representatives of each group) and the compensations criteria also generated conflicts between the organizations (Speake et al. 2020). The authorities exploited this split to justify delays in the execution of the agreement and the transference of funds.
The APARBB, more radical in its demands and methods, was even against the conversion program, directly demanding reparation for the environmental damage and condemning the agreement as it implied the removing of collective actions from those affected (La Nueva, 2010). In 2011, 52 artisanal fishermen grouped in it began a prosecution process involving two separate cases, one civil (due to lack of protective measures toward the estuary by companies and of controls by the authorities) and the other criminal (due to fraud in non-compliance with environmental laws) (Table 2).
Artisanal Fishermen Groups, 2012.
The response of the national state in the case based on civil justice is informative: the fishermen would not have the right to file this claim since fish resources belong to the provincial state, granted by the National Constitution in its Article 12; fishermen only have a fishing permit. 8 In other words, fishermen have permission to collect goods from the sea belonging to the province; if these goods disappear, fishermen cannot file a claim even if the cause of their disappearance is a crime (discharge of effluents by companies). At the same time, the provincial authorities stated that the discharge of effluents complies with the limits established by norms (Resolution 336/03). However, this threshold was set for the open sea, omitting critical values for ecosystems with less aquatic renewal, such as estuaries. 9 The provincial authorities asked PBSD to define specific parameters for other ecosystems, a threshold that, to date, is still without opinion. Thus, legal loopholes are functional; companies use them to move on the margin of legality without explicitly violating any regulations.
In neither of the two cases did the judicial process proceed with haste; the long periods of investigation and collection of evidence, the declaration of lack of legal competence of judges, diverting the cases to other jurisdictions, and recurrent appeals have caused a legal paralysis. After 10 years of initiation of the legal actions, none has yet reached a final decision. Unlike the mobilizations of residents due to the leaks of the year 2000, the protests carried out by fishermen during 2009–2012 did not have as their central content the impact on the living conditions of populations, but rather they focused on more specific and homogeneous issues (loss of fish resources and profitability in the sector, sustainability of employment). However, their methods were more radical insofar as they involved total and partial blocks of access roads to the port and police confrontations.
The Movement Against Dredging, 2011
In July 2011, the agreement between YPF and ENARSA 10 formalized their intentions to extend the dredging of the port to the outskirts of the town of General Daniel Cerri to allow the construction of a dock, the installation of a re-gasification plant and a thermoelectric plant. This event was another milestone in the mobilization of the local population, which, this time, achieved a greater scope and impact as the project affected large areas of the wetland of which the estuary is part, in addition to the risks implicit in the operation of methane tankers and gas tanks. The authorities anticipated the popular rejection and they began to implement it without complying with the provincial and local regulations in force (Law 11723/1995 and ordinance 14253/2007, respectively), which required the holding of a public hearing to assess the environmental impact reports of the project.
The mobilization was massive and led to the creation of another association, ADVA (see Table 1). In this case, the planned extension of the dredging affected both fishermen and the community as a whole, which caused these groups to act jointly and increased the level of opposition. The massiveness of the protests led the authorities to hold the public hearing in November 2011. The environmental and residents movements accused the authorities of exerting agenda control over the hearing. Nonetheless, the hearing took place with more than a hundred statements and around 70% of them declared against the project. 11
ADVA also took administrative and legal actions against the decisions of the CGPBB and PBSD. In May 2013, the court sustained the request for a precautionary action filed by ADVA and ordered the suspension of the dredging. Popular organizations interpreted that decision as a partial victory. The verdict was, however, useless; the project had already been discontinued one year earlier after the nationalization of YPF (La Nueva, 2013), and finally abandoned by 2015 due to unfavorable macroeconomic conditions. 12 The thermoelectric plant was inaugurated in September 2015. In May 2019, YPF installed a liquefaction plant in the port to export gas, which ignored the urban conflict unleashed in 2011 (Econojournal, 2019).
The protagonists of each wave of conflict have included residents of Ingeniero White with varying degrees of politicization. These movements coexist in a situation where most of the local population is resigned to the degradation of their environment. In the words of one of the interviewees:
I have lived in White for 30 years, my children and I have always eaten fish from the estuary, we are healthy. Thirty years ago, companies were already there doing more or less the same as now… Today everything is contaminated, what you buy in the supermarket has preservatives, there are rats in the kitchen of restaurants, wherever you go there is contamination. (Local resident, a teacher, interview on November 16, 2019)
Actions and Reactions of the Companies
The analyses of urban environmental struggles should always pay attention to the reactions of the accused and not only the victims. Companies have displayed two types of responses to the community’s attempts to assign them responsibility for environmental pollution; first, each adverse event is usually attributed to “human failure” or to workers, and the impacts are minimized (“no deaths,” “no serious injuries,” “the event was rapidly controlled,” and so on). According to one former outsourced worker who was interviewed:
Accidents always happen due to human failure. Those that occurred in the plants also respond to the carelessness of the people in charge. The key is why they work that way. The companies are responsible as they schedule long working hours, especially during plant turnarounds, that reach 12 hours a day without days off in the haste to meet production goals. That leads to operators not working fully alert. (Ex-worker, interviewed on May 20, 2019)
Ultimately, the main goals of the companies are responsible for these consequences, although they deny this.
Regarding safety issues, petrochemical companies have deployed a hierarchical personnel structure, where supervisors have to make sure the employees and equipment comply with the safety regulations. After an adverse event, the public statements made by the companies focus on human failures and within the firm, they impose sanctions on those in charge. However, there also double standards:
Operators who perform maintenance and equipment control tasks are blamed for safety issues in the first instance, but the pressure on the supervisors is exerted in a more perverse way. They sanction us when accidents occur, but when we stop an operation for safety reasons, they tell us we cause delays and force us to move forward ignoring our warnings… Our task is resisted by operators and undervalued by the managers. (Ex-operator, interview, May 20, 2019)
In addition, companies take long-range actions which are aimed at deactivating collective actions, such as the donations of materials for building improvements to local schools, equipment for the local government, supplies and apparatus to health offices, trees for forestation campaigns, sponsorship of festivals, and so on (Heredia Chaz, 2014). And the AVVI members who were temporary workers at the grain companies operating in the port, have not been rehired since their participation in mobilizations (Scandizzo, 2005).
Since 2017, CGPBB has deployed a strategy based on co-optation. In November 2017, the new president of CGPBB used a different communication strategy with community leaders. Until then, the various presidents of the consortium maintained a distant and confrontational relationship with neighbors. The new management announced that a greater (although selective) openness toward the community and representatives of social organizations could make more effective the actions of companies aimed at discouraging mobilizations and neutralizing social conflicts. This new approach taken by CGPBB emerges in interviews with local residents who admit that the new manager “is the first leader to listen to us, he does not ignore us, he told us that the doors are always open for our complaints. The previous ones did not answer the phone or defamed us” (fisherman, interview, November 19, 2019). “I believe that if we do not get anything from the trial, the Consortium will give us the reparations anyway, I think so. This time is different. The new management is faithful” (fisherman, interview, November 19, 2019).
In mid-2018, CGPBB launched the so-called Plan White 2020, which includes revitalization works in different urban areas of Ingeniero White, such as the recovery of a disused dock of 350 m for recreational purposes and the modernization of the main access road to the town and other small works.
13
The propaganda of the plan, together with previous stages of its execution, gathered residents in various instances (e.g., presentation of projects for fund allocation, definition of execution schedules). That project contributed to generate expectations in the community (especially in the youngest people) about a possible labor insertion in these works and, consequently, less will and time were devoted to organizing resistance groups. According to one interviewee:
I do not want to argue if companies pollute us because, first, they do and we all know that. But what are we going to do? Put ourselves against the companies? They are octopuses; nobody is going to take them out. I prefer to take care of my daily problems: how to pay the rent, what to eat, to get what my kids need for school…I expect to be hired by the companies here, which are close to my home and pay good salaries rather doing temporary work] in Bahia. (Unemployed resident, 31 years old, interview, May 21, 2019)
Companies and local authorities managed to temporarily deactivate the most active leaders and weaken protests, both through deterrence (donation of funds to local institutions) and through discipline (actual or potential lay off threats). In any case, these actions reduce the alertness of the community in periods of calm, but they do not completely neutralize mobilizations when negative events occur.
Final Considerations
A series of final considerations can be drawn from the foregoing analysis of the urban movements that have emerged to oppose the degradation of the environment along the Bahia Blanca coastline. In the first place, these movements all seem to have emerged from specific adverse events (i.e., the cracks in houses, leaks, explosions, dredging, etc.), followed by collective and spontaneous actions that win the streets and get the attention of both the media and the authorities. Contact with officials then led some of the movements to negotiation of reformist demands (such as subsidies, regulations, controls, and penalties).
This process is contradictory: at first, the reformist demands seem more feasible relative to more radical demands, but the reformist demands tend to result in back tracking. Each event and the subsequent popular reaction is spasmodically addressed by the government with emergency measures that weaken the mobilization efforts. After that, bureaucratic delays exhaust and/or divide the most active leaders and environmental organizations. When community movements have used legal means this results in legal paralysis. The delays in executive and/or judicial action constitute a double demobilization factor. Each advance generates expectations among the affected parties, who often cancel protests while they wait for expected administrative actions or judicial decisions. Judicial setbacks or bureaucratic obstacles also tend to demobilize the local activists by causing frustration. In general, the government’s responses generate “wait” on the part of the protest groups (first, in expectation their demands will be met, then with disappointment when they are not met), which is a common mechanism of political domination (Auyero & Swistun, 2006).
The actions of the local fishermen were relatively more effective than those of the neighborhood groups that emerged in 2000s. The modest achievements of the neighborhood movements were a result of not only their political heterogeneity, but also due to the fact the amount of compensation they wanted was more substantial or undefined. The nature of some of their demands such as plant closures was unacceptable to the corporations and authorities. In addition, the failure to create shared identities and strengthen their networks, the steady deterioration of activities and the burden placed on just a few individual leaders gave an incidental character to their collective action reduced their effectiveness.
This case study reveals how the state authorities lack the ability to carry out the most elementary measures of social pacification. The environmental tax represents a minor proportion of the profits of the petrochemical companies that, due to the nature of their activities, cannot move to less harmful locations without giving up a large part of their investment (technically known as sunk costs). Their tactics also have contributed to the demobilization of the community through the cooptation of community leaders, the deterrence of the more radicalized ones, threats of dismissal, financing of public works, employment opportunities, and so on (Heredia Chaz, 2014).
The course of urban environmental struggles illustrated by this case study shows how capitalist institutions do not offer any effective way to resolve the environmental degradation they create. These institutions offer neither definitive solutions (as capitalism generates new mechanisms of environmental degradation almost continuously). The reformist options have also shown their limits not only in generating possible solutions, but also in fostering ongoing popular resistance and effective popular organizations dedicated to ending environmental degradation.
It is not a question of abandoning the existing environmentalist movements, judicial proceedings, or controlling the detrimental actions of companies, but of developing a new approach that strengthens these movements and their capability to successfully end the degradation of the earth’s bio-sphere. What is needed is the transformation of existing urban and environmental struggles into a fundamental anti-capitalist revolutionary force (Harvey, 2008).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.