Runaway Export Leaves Resort in the Dust

This historic port city was once touted by the Colombian government as the next Acapulco, with its scenic bay, white sand beaches, colonial history and the eco-tourism potential of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, home to one of the largest and oldest pre-Columbian settlements in the Americas.

Then came the coal dust.

“It covers the plants, the furniture, enters the reception area and even the rooms,” said Leonor Gomez Gonzalez, owner of the beachfront Park Hotel. “It’s a permanent condition. Nothing stays clean.”

Officials say tourism is down significantly and that only one new hotel has been built in three years -- since coal shipments began to increase dramatically.

Riding high on the global commodities boom, Colombia is reaping an enormous windfall from export of its high-quality coal, and millions of tons of it are being shipped annually from this sweltering, desert-like coastal area to the far corners of the Earth.

But in Santa Marta, officials and residents complain that the only dividend they’re getting is an unwanted one: the fine layer of coal dust spread over much of the town each morning after La Loca, or the Crazy One, blows. That’s what locals call the gusts that scatter the black dust through much of the city -- from the poor barrio of San Martin to the wealthy beach enclave of Bella Vista -- hurting tourism, fishing and possibly the health of residents.

The mining industry now overshadows tourism here in Colombia’s first city, founded in 1525. Santa Marta’s deep-water port has made it a leading embarkation point for coal mined in La Guajira and Cesar states, and the dust and residue from thousands of loads of coal passing through or near here daily on trucks and trains have smudged the city’s image and cooled visitors’ ardor.

At the same time, construction in the rest of Colombia is booming, as is tourism in selected areas.

Mayor Jose Francisco Zuniga said in an interview last month that the growing presence of coal had robbed Santa Marta of jobs and economic growth.

Contamination of Santa Marta Bay by coal dust and by at least two major spills from coal-laden barges since 2001 has severely damaged the marine ecosystem and reduced the once- rich fishing grounds, experts say.

“Right there, that’s hunger,” fisherman Humberto Grande, 20, said as he contemplated the measly load of sardines that he and his nine companions had harvested from the sea after 12 hours of backbreaking work setting and then hauling in their quarter-mile-long net. The catch was worth about $2 each to them.

“It’s all contaminated here,” Grande said.

Residents worry that the coal dust, well known for causing severe pulmonary problems such as black lung disease and silicosis in miners, could be a public health time bomb.

“Many children have come down with respiratory and skin problems,” said Hector Ortiz, community leader of the San Martin barrio. “It’s because of the coal dust that the air current brings here.”

Despite what seems to be widespread unhappiness about the coal among Santa Marta’s citizens, public opposition appears relatively muted. That reticence was attributed variously to indifference, exasperation and fear.

“Expressing yourself in this town can cost you your life,” community activist Ana Elisa Angulo said.

Angulo was referring to the killing in 2004 of local parks director Marta Castillo, 40, after she denounced the use of nearby Tayrona National Park by drug traffickers.

Three labor leaders at the Drummond Co. coal mine in La Loma, 120 miles south of here, were killed by suspected paramilitary troops after campaigning for better work conditions. Drummond, based in Birmingham, Ala., faces a U.S. civil suit in the matter. The company has denied any involvement in the killings.

“In the end, the last word around here goes to the one with the money,” hotel owner Gomez Gonzalez said.

Four mining companies use Santa Marta and its environs as a storage depot and offloading point for coal. But the facility maintained by Carbosan in the Santa Marta port, just a few hundred yards from the densely populated city center, is the main source of the dust -- and of concern.

There, the locally owned mining company maintains a four-story-tall open stockpile of coal for direct loading onto ships.

Surrounding buildings, especially the adjacent Institute of Marine and Coastal Research “Jose Benito Vives de Andreis,” are covered with coal dust after a day of La Loca.

“After one weekend of strong winds last year, we swept up half a ton of coal from our walkways and parking lot,” said Jesus Garay, an official at the research station. “As years go by, I think we will begin to see long-term health impacts in our employees.”

Garay said the institute’s administrators were trying to move.

Stretches of the city’s major traffic artery, Railroad Avenue, have taken on the grimy look of a truck stop as small businesses have sprung up to clean, maintain and park trucks after they have dumped their loads at the port.

Environmental officials worry that coal dust runoff from the truck washing is another factor fouling Santa Marta Bay.

Local environmental officials and even the four major coal companies have called on the government of President Alvaro Uribe to authorize a study of the coal’s health effects, so far to no avail.

How did Santa Marta become the nation’s unwilling platform for coal exports?

Mayor Zuniga and others said it was decided by the federal government, which handed out concessions to mining companies with little or no input from local authorities.

Francisco Ospina Navia, a local historian and owner of an aquarium on nearby Rodadero Beach, said, “I put all my savings into the aquarium thinking this was going to be the next Acapulco, and then 200 trucks of coal started rolling through the center of Santa Marta every day. We were tricked.”

Colombian authorities contend that the companies are complying with pollution laws. But the same officials acknowledge that the rules deal in averages and that the levels of particulates spread around Santa Marta on days when La Loca whips up are far above the minimums.

Environmental officials say pollution monitoring is inadequate.

While this city smolders, there is little doubt that the nation and the many coal-mining companies that have flocked here are benefiting. Colombia rang up $2.6 billion in coal exports last year, a 40% increase from 2004.

Coal is second only to oil among Colombia’s exports, ranking ahead of coffee. The boom has been fueled by a doubling in coal prices over the last three years, part of the global surge in commodity prices propelled by increased demand from China and India.

Colombia has seen demand rise for its high-energy, low-sulfur coal, especially among utilities and industries in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Despite high transportation costs, the companies see coal as a cheaper alternative to natural gas and fuel oil. Colombia is now the world’s sixth-largest coal exporter.

In addition to Carbosan, three companies -- including Drummond and the Swiss firm Glencore International, which operates here under the Prodeco name -- use the Santa Marta area as a transit point.

Drummond moves its coal here from La Loma in Cesar state via a railroad once used by United Fruit Co. to transport bananas. The company, which runs 14 daily trains of 100 cars each to its private docking facility 15 miles south of the Santa Marta city center, has doubled its production over the last three years and will double it again by 2008 if plans to build a parallel railroad line from the mine move forward, said Augusto Jimenez, its Colombia chief.

In an interview in Bogota, the capital, Jimenez said Drummond caused less pollution than Carbosan, which he criticized for maintaining open piles of coal in Santa Marta’s port. He said his company backed an idea floated by President Uribe for one coal “super port” near the Drummond facility through which all coal shipped out of northwest Colombia would be routed, reducing pollution in Santa Marta.

Uribe’s office and the ministries of Transportation and Mining did not respond to requests for information on the president’s proposal.

Mayor Zuniga worries that any super port is a long way off, and that in the meantime Santa Marta is being stained and ground down by coal.

He said the city had received only $500,000 of the hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties and taxes the mining companies had paid to the government. That’s not enough to maintain the roads the trucks use, much less to invest in tourism promotion to counteract coal’s negative effect.

“Coal offers nothing positive to the city,” Zuniga said. “Only negative.”

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Times researcher Jenny Carolina Gonzalez in Bogota contributed to this report.