Chile miner Los Pelambres hits environmental snag
Date: 03-Sep-01
Country: CHILE
Chilean environmental authorities rejected this week an environmental impact declaration (EID) submitted by the miner for what it termed a $24 million "marginal expansion" at its mine, located in the Andean mountains south of the Atacama Desert.
In a ruling Los Pelambres said it would appeal, the Regional Environmental Commission (Corema) said the miner must submit a more extensive environmental impact study (EIS), which unlike the fast-track EID statement, requires several months to prepare and requires consultation with citizen groups.
Los Pelambres said the rejection is not a major setback because it has already expanded its output to above design capacity and filed the EID as a formality to update regulators on its production status.
"What we did was actually an optimization rather than an expansion and we simply wanted to keep the environmental authorities informed of our situation," a company source, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
However, the source said delay in obtaining environmental approval for this initial expansion could change the timeline for future developments.
The expansion underway, formally announced in June, involves increasing the mine's daily mineral processing by 34 percent to 114,000 tonnes from 85,000 tonnes over the life of the mine.
In the second quarter, Los Pelambres was already producing at 20 percent above capacity, averaging 102,500 tonnes per day, according to a company statement.
But environmental groups cheered the Corema decision because they say it will forestall the eventual construction by Los Pelambres of two unwanted tailings dams near farmlands.
Los Pelambres said it plans to submit a comprehensive EIS for the new waste dump sites in the first half of next year.
Manuel Baquedano, head of the environmental group spearheading a campaign against the tailings dams, said they would cut off water supply and contaminate valuable agricultural soil in the area surrounding Caimanes, a town of 1,500 people.
"There is a very strong sentiment against this project from the farmers, the fishermen in the bay and the community as a whole," he told Reuters.
The mine has produced 170,000 tonnes of copper in concentrates in the first six months of this year, compared with 141,200 tonnes a year earlier.