A war is being waged over the future of Argentina’s Andean glaciers, as environmentalists warn of the dangers posed by heavy resource mining and the construction of vast new data centres.
These might be a boon for the country’s fragile economy, but geologists fear they could lead to severe water shortages and devastating flash-flooding similar to the one that killed more than a thousand people in Nepal and Tibet last month.
Copper, energy and data
President Javier Milei has looked to attract major oil and mining investments to Argentina through tax breaks and regulatory reforms, including changes to the 2010 Glacier Law banning damaging commercial activity on the country’s nearly 17,000 documented glaciers.
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Changes to the law passed by MPs in April this year transferred responsibility of defining protected glacier areas to provincial governments, something Milei said would “empower” them to permit exploitation in glacial zones where they judged there was “nothing to protect”, reported BBC.
Bosses from mining giants Glencore, Lundin and BHP Group have all visited Milei in the last year, reported Bloomberg, and, along with others, are “keen to invest about $40 billion in Argentina’s untapped copper belt”.
Milei’s efforts to court Big Tech also appear to be paying off. Investors have been eyeing up potential sites in Patagonia for new data centres, enticed by “cool temperatures, renewable energy, shale gas and empty stretches of land”, as well as a lack of organised opposition, said Reuters. Last October, OpenAI announced plans to partner with a local company to build a data centre powered by clean energy costing up to $25 billion.
But while Patagonia “has energy resources and a favorable climate, infrastructure and connectivity remain hurdles”. There is also anxiety among investors ahead of the 2027 presidential election and the potential victory of a left-wing candidate. “They would feel more comfortable if Milei was re-elected,” said Luis Schilling, Latin America co-chair for iMasons, a US digital infrastructure non-profit.
‘Daughter of water’
Argentina’s glaciers provide water to 36 river basins across 12 provinces, which are home to more than seven million people. “In years with especially low rain and snowfall” water from melted glaciers “helps to minimise the impact of droughts” which have become “increasingly common” in recent years, said BBC business reporter Rachel Flynn.
“The Andes mountains, with their winter snow and glaciers, feed the rivers and streams that flow into the valley to irrigate our crops,” Virginia de Valle, whose family runs a vineyard in the Mendoza region, told the broadcaster. “This is also the water we consume in our homes. That is why people say ‘Mendoza is the daughter of water’.”
A study using MapBiomas data reported that 42% of all Andean glaciers have already disappeared, and according to data from Argentine Institute of Snow Science, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences, the amount of ice lost annually by Argentine glaciers could supply all Argentinians for a year and a half.
Changes to the Glacier Law have sparked widespread public protest in areas reliant on them for water. Scientists and geologists have warned that glacial development will further accelerate the retreat of Andean ice sheets, creating unstable conditions that expose Argentina – as well as neighbouring Chile and Peru – to the risk of catastrophic floods and mudslides.
In November 2005, the collapse of the Laguna de los Erizos reservoir in San Juan province unleashed a 1.1 billion cubic-feet mudslide that stretched for 155 miles, although its remote location prevented any deaths. “What happened in Nepal has already happened in Argentina,” Juan Pablo Milana, a researcher with Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council, told Argentinian news site Infobae.
