The remediation project is now underway, following the
schedule to complete the remediation of Paño Sur. For this new stage, Ricardo Labarca, who has been with Las Salinas for more than 10 years, takes over as General Manager and Arturo Natho becomes Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Las Salinas is moving forward with the land reclamation works in front of Avenida Jorge Montt and, to lead this new stage, Ricardo Labarca, Civil Engineer and Master in Development, took over as general manager of Las Salinas, replacing Arturo Natho, who took over as chairman of the Board of Directors.
With more than 15 years of experience in sustainable development and ten years as part of Las Salinas’ professional team, which included development management, Labarca is now the main executive in charge of the remediation, in which he will be responsible for the integral management of local and national teams, together with professionals from the Spanish IDOM and the French Séché Group.
After the first stage of cleaning up the 16 hectares, which enabled the land for surface uses, Las Salinas is now moving forward with a complete bioremediation plan, a technique based on nature, effective in its results and safe for people and the environment, as authorized by the environmental institutions and ratified by the Committee of Ministers.
This is a project that has generated multiple lessons learned in environmental remediation, becoming a reference experience at the national level. Today the remediation project is in the construction phase, which involves the preparation of the land and the installation of the necessary infrastructure for the remediation activities, following the schedule foreseen to complete the remediation of the Paño Sur.
Commitment and conviction
The general manager of Las Salinas, Ricardo Labarca, said that “I am very proud to take on this challenge because we have a team with an outstanding professional background and great commitment to the project that we are carrying out in Viña del Mar. Together with Arturo, we will continue working to promote this initiative, with the conviction that implementing land reclamation means moving towards a better quality of life for the city and the people who live in it”.
Arturo Natho, president of the Board of Directors of Las Salinas, recalled that he was present from the beginning in the conversations with the then mayor of Viña del Mar, Jorge Kaplán, to seal the transfer of the oil companies from the area, to carry out the first stage of the cleanup and then to search for the best alternatives to complete the remediation that will allow new uses for the city.
“Today it falls to me to continue accompanying this project from a new space. We have put together a very good team with which we will continue to work with the same excellence and commitment to complete the cleanup of the land and materialize the dreams that the citizens themselves have shared with us during all these years of dialogue and work in Viña del Mar,” said Natho.
Stages of bioremediation
Remediation will be carried out separately in each of the sectors that North 19th Street
divides the site, starting with the South and then with the North. An estimated timeframe of around 3 years is
for the remediation of each site, with an “on site” remediation,
i.e., where the main activities occur within the site.
