The Sonora River, which flows from the city of Cananea to near the state’s capital, Hermosillo, is considered the agricultural and ranching lifeblood of the region.

López’s husband, Armando Enríquez, lost his harvest when the government temporarily closed all of the Sonora River water wells after the spill. The impact to his farms got worse when Hurricane Odile hit Mexico one month later, causing the river to overflow its banks and inundate his lands with toxic water.

“Despite the fact that it impacted us economically, it caused a lot of harm to ranching (in the region),” said Enríquez, 35. “Everything that I have is here, this is how I make a living.”

Federal authorities in Mexico reached an agreement with Grupo México to establish a $150 million trust fund, called the Fideicomiso Río Sonora, to offer financial reparations to ranchers and other businesses impacted by the spill. As of August 2015, the fund had disbursed more than 36,000 individual claims, some of which included multiple claims per person and vary from health to business reimbursements.

Enríquez received the equivalent of $7,000 to offset his business losses, but he said his farming expenses are four times that amount. He said this is in addition to the fact that immediately following the spill, his wife and children started to have health problems.

“At first we thought we were safe because Grupo México brought us water in jugs and trucks. But after consuming that water we started to have health problems,” said Zoila López, Enriquez’s wife.

Grupo México distributed more than 45 million liters of clean water during the first month after the spill, according to statements made by the company. The mine and COFEPRIS, the Mexican agency that oversees public health, didn’t respond to repeated questions about where the water come from or how its safety was assessed.

The Mexican government said it immediately dispatched mobile clinics to the region to monitor its residents for heavy metal exposure. But López claims the doctors wouldn’t test her blood for toxins, a test her family couldn’t afford on their own.

Seven months later and after she made her case public, López was contacted by government health officials. It was then that López and her family were tested for heavy metals. As a result, she received the equivalent of $1,000 from the Grupo México trust fund.

López and her family are recognized among more than 300 others with health problems tied directly to the spill. They are now receiving treatment at a government-run epidemiology treatment center that opened in March 2015.

Community questions mining oversight

Grupo México, a Mexican-owned mining conglomerate with sites in Latin America and the U.S., failed to immediately notify federal authorities about the spill, as is required by law, according to PROFEPA, the Mexican agency that oversees mining operations.

But Grupo México said in a prepared statement last year that “The Company, on learning of the incident, immediately proceeded to install a containment wall … completed in less than 24 hours. Simultaneously, Buenavista del Cobre followed protocol and reported the incident to the Ministry of the Environment and other local authorities…”

Grupo México also initially blamed the spill on heavy rains, but in an official report from the Mexico Ministry of the Environmental and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), “the reports from the national meteorological service in Mexico demonstrate that is absolutely false.”