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This Thursday the Environmental Court confirmed the “total and definitive” closure of the mining project Easter Lama, for the environmental damage caused during its construction in the Atacama region, in the border area with Argentina.
The Canadian initiative Barrick Gold It was to be the largest open-pit gold and silver deposit in the world, with an investment of about 8,000 million dollars, and it was to be operational in 2014.
It had planned to produce about 615,000 ounces of gold and 18.2 million of silver; in addition to generate at least 6,500 jobs.
The project had been suspended since 2013, after regulators considered insufficient the works that should protect the waterways surrounding the deposit.
The latest ruling – which confirmed the total closure – highlighted the decision announced in 2018 by the Superintendency of the Environment to cancel this project for not complying with the environmental license that had been granted.
“The magnitude of the danger of damage to people’s health makes it necessary to close the project, as other alternatives of safe operation for the environment and the health of the population do not seem viable,” the resolution indicated.
Pascua Lama is located about 4,500 meters above sea level in an area of glaciers in the Andes Mountains, on the northern border between Chile and Argentina.
The gold project was strongly resisted in both countries due to environmental problems.
According to the regulator, Pascua Lama violated 33 regulations environmental and caused damage to native flora and fauna species.
In addition, the firm carried out incomplete monitoring of the glaciers and the discharge of acidic waters into a nearby river that supplied Diaguita indigenous communities.
“The Superintendency acted within the scope of legality, correctly weighing the elements of proportionality by opting for the sanction of definitive closure and not for a limited partial or temporary closure,” added the court ruling.
Government stressed confidence in the institutionality
The Minister of Mining, Baldo prokuricaHe said after hearing the ruling that “you have to have confidence in the Chilean institutions.”
“Here it was demonstrated that we are facing a robust institutionality that acts, and that sanctions those who do not comply with current legislation,” he said.
Minister Prokurica reiterated that when there are projects that are inconsistent or that have damaged the environment, “the courts and the institutions work and do not allow them to go ahead.”
The Minister of Mining emphasized “clearly that as the Government of President Sebastián Piñera we have permanently insisted with the companies that Mining can be done, carried out, but respecting the environment and respecting the institutional framework ”.
Finally, he stressed that in Chile, companies that do not comply with the institutional framework “will not be able to carry out their projects.”
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