- In 2023, the Los Pelambres Mining Company’s “Operational Adaptation” project was unanimously approved. The project will allow for the relocation of pipelines that transport copper concentrate, the extension of the mining project’s lifetime, and the construction of a desalination plant.
- The mining company’s extensive history of environmental damage — which includes oil, copper concentrate and industrial water spills — has residents of Pupío concerned, especially because the new pipelines will be installed only 100 meters (330 feet) from their homes.
- However, the opposition of many residents to the new pipelines caused the mining company to bring a lawsuit against them. The 27 defendants are in addition to another five people from Choapa Viejo who are also facing a legal process after protesting for solutions to the environmental damage caused by the company.
- However, in response to the residents’ opposition, the mining company has sued 27 locals. Another five people from Choapa Viejo are also facing legal proceedings after they protested, demanding solutions for the environmental damage caused by the company.
During the second week of October 2023, in northern Chile’s Coquimbo, Yasna Silva used social media to ask for help. She and her entire family had been sued by the Los Pelambres Mining Company. The reason? Neither she, nor the rest of the residents of her community, Pupío, had agreed to the expansion of a road that would allow the mining company to install two new pipelines: one that would transport 1,200 liters (317 gallons) of industrial water per second, and another that would transport copper concentrate away from where the company extracts it in the Andes Mountains in the Coquimbo region. Both pipelines would be fewer than 100 meters (330 feet) from her house, and the fear that a leak could affect her home led her to oppose the project.
Even though there is already a pipeline in the area, it currently only transports 400 l (105 gallons) of industrial water per second. With the 2023 approval of the company’s new Operational Adaptation project, that pipeline will be able to hold three times its current capacity, and a separate pipeline for copper concentrate will be added.
The mining company told Mongabay Latam that during some conversations with property owners, “it was not possible to agree on compensation for the rights-of-way,” (or, in other words, for the construction of the road required to install the pipelines). For that reason, the company said that “it was requested that an impartial third party determine a fair price to pay for the easements, which is carried out through an independent expert on the different cases that are currently in progress.”
However, residents of Pupío, where Yasna Silva lives, claim that this conversation did not happen and that they have only learned of any progress in the lawsuit through official notifications from the court in Illapel.
The mining company is suing 27 residents of Pupío in a civil trial for not accepting the expansion of the right-of-way for the company. “Among the defendants, there are two senior citizens: a 88-year-old and another 89-year-old. [There are] people from the country who have never set foot in a court of law. This has been terrible for them. There are nights when they cannot even sleep because they are worried. Among the defendants, there are also two people with disabilities; one of them lives connected to a ventilator,” said Oscar Montalva, another resident of Pupío who was sued by the mining company.
The community explained that the legal process is currently paused due to the death of a resident of Pupío and that it will resume in the next few months, when the beneficiaries effectively take possession of the land. They never thought they would find themselves in a legal battle with a company as large as Los Pelambres, which is one of the 15 largest copper producers in the world. They admitted that the process has been agonizing. However, they trust that there will be a favorable resolution.
“We are hoping that the resolution will be in our favor and [that] the mining company will take responsibility for all the damage that it has already caused us, the environmental impact that it has produced, the changes in our everyday life, our physical and mental health, the impact on agriculture and livestock, and the imminent danger of a right-of-way fewer than 100 meters [328 feet] from our houses,” said Yasna Silva.
More than 200 citizen comments
The hills and valleys of Choapa province, which is located in the southern part of the Coquimbo region, mark the end of the Atacama Desert and the beginning of Central Chile. It extends from the mountains to the ocean, across Chile’s transverse valley, which begins at the border with Argentina to the east and ends at the Pacific Ocean to the west, with a population of just over 80,000. The Los Pelambres Mining Company has operated in this province since 1997. It is one of the five largest copper producers in Chile, and its main shareholder is Antofagasta Minerals (AMSA), which owns 60 percent. The other 40 percent belongs to a group of Japanese companies: Nippon LP Investment (25 percent) and Marubeni & Mitsubishi LP Holding BV (15 percent).
The copper concentrate that Los Pelambres extracts in the mountainous area of the Choapa, near the border with Argentina, is transported through pipelines across the entire province until it arrives at the coast, where it is loaded onto ships to be transported and later sold. Excess materials from the mining process are transported through other pipelines towards the two largest tailings dams in the Coquimbo region: Los Quillayes and El Mauro.
Additionally, the mining company has several industrial projects to facilitate this movement, such as a booster pump, which boosts copper concentrate from a low-altitude area in the province — the rural sector of Choapa Viejo — towards the coast.
According to Antofagasta Minerals’ website, AMSA is the main private mining group in Chile and is one of the 10 largest copper producers in the world. It also belongs to one of the country’s most powerful families: the Luksic family. The properties the family owns include the Banco de Chile (the Bank of Chile), Canal 13 (Channel 13, a Chilean TV channel) and CCU, one of Chile’s largest beverage distributors.
On October 20, 2023, after a recommendation from the regional department of the ministry of the environment in Coquimbo, the environmental evaluation commission unanimously approved the Los Pelambres Mining Company’s new “Operational Adaptation” project.
The project, which involves a one billion-dollar investment seeks to develop a new route for the pipelines that transport copper concentrate from the mountains to the ocean, crossing all of Choapa province. The project also involves increasing the mining project’s lifetime, until the El Mauro tailings dam reaches its maximum authorized storage capacity: 1.7 billion tons.
Lastly, the construction of a desalination plant is being considered. It would allow for the use of sea water for industrial processes to avoid using fresh water, although the company has not yet explained what it will do with the 829 liters (219 gallons) per second that it currently has.
The problem is that the mining company’s history of environmental damage is keeping the residents of the province on edge. Many fear that the “Operational Adaptation” project will cause spills like the one in 2022, when a break in the pipeline that transports copper concentrate caused nearby agricultural land to be contaminated.
“Who could live peacefully knowing that, at any moment, a disaster could happen like those that have already happened at the Los Pelambres mine in the Choapa Valley with smaller-scale projects?” asked Oscar Montalva, one of the residents of Pupío who is being sued.
The residents’ concerns were evident in the more than 200 citizen comments that were presented to Chile’s environmental evaluation service regarding the Operational Adaptation project.
The company’s environmental history
The spill in 2022 is not the only impact of the Los Pelambres mine on residents of the area. In August 2008, water from the Los Quillayes tailings dam infiltrated the Cuncumén River, and material that came from an emergency reservoir reached the Camisas Stream. Later that same year, in November, the company spilled more than 10,000 l (2,640 gal) of oil. In December, processed water leaked from the safety spillway at the El Mauro tailings dam into the Pupío Stream. The company received sanctions from the former environmental authority for all this damage with the largest fine that had ever been imposed against the mining company at that time: 82.5 million Chilean Pesos (about $140,000 USD at the time). This corresponds to 0.02 percent of Los Pelambres Mining Company’s profits in 2009. In August of that year, 13,000 l (3,434 gal) of copper concentrate fell directly into the Choapa River.
Later, under the new environmental authority, the environmental impacts and sanctions against the company continued. So far, Chile’s Superintendency of the Environment (Superintendencia de Medio Ambiente, or SMA, in Spanish) has opened three disciplinary processes against it (in 2013, 2016 and 2022), and two of them have resulted in sanctions.
The most recent of these disciplinary processes was due to the spillage of industrial water in an agricultural area a few meters from the Camisas River, in the Salamanca commune. For this incident, the Los Pelambres Mining Company was fined more than $120,000 (118 million Chilean pesos). The disaster occurred in November 2021, when one of the emergency reservoirs leaked industrial water onto the riverbank. These emergency reservoirs are designed to hold any drainage in case of a break in the pipelines, but according to the SMA, these reservoirs were being used for a purpose other than what was intended. A total of 6,056 cubic meters (213,865 cubic feet) of water were being stored in them for industrial purposes, instead of leaving them empty in case of a disaster.
During the disciplinary process, it was also established that there were “deficiencies in the control, maintenance and monitoring of the pipeline drainage and tailings collection system,” which was considered a serious issue by the SMA.
The potential reoccurrence of an incident like this is the greatest fear of many residents of Pupío.
The other sanction that the company received was a fine from the disciplinary process in 2013. The mining company had to pay over $1.9 million (978 million Chilean pesos) for not having complied with their agreements to protect the heritage of the Diaguita Indigenous community, which experienced damages and losses after the construction of the El Mauro tailings dam.
One of the incidents verified by the investigations of the case was the manipulation of archaeological reports by the mining company to facilitate the approval of the dam, in addition to the loss of petroglyphs during the extraction process. “The Diaguita community’s tutelary spaces have been systematically destroyed by the Los Pelambres Mining Company,” said Ivan Aguilera, a traditional Diaguita educator and resident of Choapa Province. Investigations conducted by the General Comptroller of the Republic of Chile, on the other hand, found that some of the public officials who were in charge of overseeing the project were both judge and party in the approval of the tailings dam, given that they were working in parallel with the Los Pelambres Mining Company.
A million-dollar lawsuit against campesinos
The 27 people being sued in Pupío for opposing the expansion of the right-of-way are not the only people facing the company in court.
The approximately 200 families that live in the town of Choapa Viejo, fewer than 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Pupío, have been provided bottled water by the mining company for more than a decade. Only a few meters away from a well that is intended to supply the community with water, there is a booster pump that the company uses to boost copper concentrate so that it can reach the coast. In 2015, some of the copper concentrate spilled onto farmland and into the Choapa River, which has historically been a source of water for families in the area.
This spill is in addition to the one that occurred in 2022, which did not result in sanctions from the SMA. However, these are among the evidence currently being presented by the community of Choapa Viejo in their environmental damage lawsuit against the Los Pelambres Mining Company.
According to the lawsuit filed by the residents of Choapa Viejo, the spill in 2015 was not the first. In fact, a study conducted in 2013 by Aguas del Valle — the company that treats and distributes drinking water in the Coquimbo region — confirmed the presence of arsenic in the water in an amount greater than seven times the norm. Although later studies reported that the water was safe to drink again, residents are wary of it. They have relied on bottled water provided to them by the mining company for more than a decade.
In July 2023, a group of Choapa Viejo residents blocked access to the booster pump to demand solutions from the company in order to be able to access drinking water again. According to the protestors, the mining company was not complying with commitments that it had taken on during their conversations, including the construction of a new well.
“There are little girls and boys here who were born opening a bottle of water and still are unable to turn on a faucet to drink [water],” said Hugo Araya, the president of the neighborhood association of Choapa Viejo.
As a consequence of that blockade, five residents of Choapa Viejo, including Hugo Araya, were sued by the company for compensation for damages for a total of 942,977,528 Chilean pesos (over $1 million USD).
In the lawsuit, the company argued that the residents of Choapa Viejo caused property damage to the Los Pelambres Mining Company equivalent to that amount of money “which should be corrected by means of compensation.”
According to Alejandro Mendoza, the lawyer who represents Hugo Araya, Juan Montenegro and Katherine Bahamondes — all residents of Choapa Viejo — the high amount being demanded by the mining company represents “punitive damages — in other words, a punishment — because there is no certainty of who participated in the blockades. (…) I have never seen a company — of the magnitude of the Los Pelambres Mining Company — demand that amount of money from people who live off of shrimp fishing and agriculture.”
Paola Tello, another defendant from Choapa Viejo, said she believes that the lawsuit is a form of intimidation when she recounted how the defendants came to know about it. “In a single meeting that we had with them, they told us that they were going to begin a civil lawsuit, with which they were going to leave us without assets and without property if we did not have [the money] to pay,” she said.
Environmental lawyer Manuela Royo, the national spokesperson for the Movement for the Defense of the Water, Land and Environment Protection (Modatima), agrees with Tello. “The legal actions against these communities are a form of intimidation,” she said, adding that the case of Choapa Viejo is a “complex and dangerous” situation.
So far, the legal process is still in progress. The last update was in August 2023, when the defendants responded to the accusation.
Illegal water extraction and damaged glaciers
In addition to the spills of copper concentrate, industrial water and oil — and the damage perpetrated against the Diaguita communities’ archaeological heritage — scientific reports explained that the Los Pelambres Mining Company removed rock glaciers in the mountainous area of Choapa Province. This is corroborated by studies conducted by the University of Waterloo in 2008, which explained that the mining company damaged rock glaciers between 1997 and 2006.
“The Los Pelambres Mining Company has intervened with rock glaciers with the equivalent of 1.89 to 2.84 million cubic meters (66.7 to 100.3 cubic feet) of water between 2000 and 2006. These actions include removing rock glaciers, depositing waste rock and constructing roads for exploring or operating the mine,” said the report.
The report also established that the mining company had knowledge of the existence of glaciers in the areas where it conducts its work. However, the mining company never shared this information with environmental authorities.
“The actions affecting rock glaciers by the Los Pelambres Mining Company were not announced in any of the environmental studies presented to the authority between 1997 and 2004. However, they were known to exist due to the fact that in 1998, the consulting firm Geoestudios Ltd. was responsible for the identification and evaluation of the group of rock glaciers in the area. However, for unknown reasons, that information was omitted in later studies. Therefore, in our understanding, they do not have the approval of the environmental and sectoral authorities involved in the evaluation process,” the report said.
According to Francisco José Ferrando, a glaciologist and academic from the University of Chile, the consequences of these incidents are irreparable. “What you are doing is destroying a reserve that gradually — when necessary — delivers water to the ecosystem and to the community, and there is no turning back when you destroy a rock glacier,” he said.
Despite the serious consequences, the mining company has still not received any fines or sanctions for these incidents.
The most recent sanction against the company was carried out by Chile’s General Water Department (Dirección General de Aguas, or DGA, in Spanish) in December 2023. It established that the Los Pelambres Mining Company had illegally extracted a total of 990,423 cubic meters (35 million cubic feet) of water from 17 wells. This was at the same time that the Coquimbo region was identified as an area facing water scarcity.
The mining company was fined 8,444 monthly tax units for these incidents. This equals more than $553,000 (543 Chilean pesos).
During that same month, December 2023, another audit conducted by the DGA determined that the company had illegally extracted water from the catchment wells near the El Mauro tailings dam. These incidents resulted in a fine of $133,000 (131 million Chilean pesos).
The sum of the fines imposed by the SMA and the DGA between 2013 and 2023 does not even amount to 0.03 percent of the $5.862 billion that were reported as profits in 2022 by the conglomerate Antofagasta PLC, which owns the Los Pelambres Mining Company.
The difference between fines and profits is, in fact, one of the issues that most bother the conservationists who have spent years complaining of the mining company’s impacts. According to data from the Production Development Corporation (CORFO in Spanish) — provided to Mongabay Latam after a request for information — the company received over $11 million (11 billion Chilean pesos) from this entity between 2008 and 2019 for development activities for local suppliers.
“It’s good that CORFO has projects [and] financing or technology programs,” said Pamela Poo, a political scientist with expertise in environmental issues. However, she warned that “if CORFO is going to fund you, you need to have an extremely high standard of compliance.”
Upon being consulted about these contributions from CORFO, the Los Pelambres Mining Company did not respond. CORFO, in turn, also did not answer as to what criteria were taken into account when providing funding.
Asymmetrical agreements with Indigenous communities
Members of at least three Chango Indigenous communities in Choapa Province say that during the approval of the Los Pelambres Mining Company’s new project, Operational Adaptation, the company offered them agreements. In them, they claim, the company committed to carrying out financial transactions of up to $100,000 (100 million Chilean pesos) in exchange for the communities’ support for the mining company’s current and future projects. The agreements also established that the community members will not be able to freely attend courts of law.
Our team sent questions to the Los Pelambres Mining Company and made two phone calls to the company to confirm this information. However, the company did not respond by the time of this article’s publication in Spanish.
In March 2023, however, local media outlets announced that the company had signed agreements with seven Chango fishing communities in the coastal area of Los Vilos, “which will allow [for] a joint work plan to boost knowledge and mutual trust, look after environmental sustainability and establish means of dialogue.” After the agreements, the National Council of the Chango People expelled the communities that signed them from the organization.
“This Council and its spokesperson clarify that the organizations from the Los Vilos area that signed with Pelambres are not part of our community, and they do not represent our world view or our interests based on their actions that go against our culture and way of life and customs,” said the Council in a statement.
According to members of the Indigenous communities from the province who were consulted by Mongabay Latam, the company pressured them to sign the agreement.
According to Alejandra Donoso, a lawyer from Defensa Ambiental — an NGO dedicated to protecting and restoring the environment — the conditions established in the agreements that the Chango communities claim that they received from the company are concerning. “The right to defense is a fundamental right; the right to protest is a fundamental right. Any limitation along these lines is a limitation on the fundamental rights of the communities,” said Donoso.
Donoso added that although “those agreements are reached under the logic of civil law, which assumes equality between the parties. One of the big problems with this type of agreement is the asymmetry, because evidently there is a difference between the parties in the negotiation power, political power and in the economic power that they might have.” “Unfortunately,” she added, “there is no oversight of said agreements because this is outside of the institutional framework; it does not go through the National Corporation for Indigenous Development (CONADI), nor does it go through the Environmental Evaluation Service; they are private agreements.”
According to Donoso, these types of agreements are usually made in territories where there is government neglect and where “companies create a relationship of dependency, or a relationship of instability, with communities that is based on the abuse of economic uncertainty.”
According to Laura Furones, a senior advisor at Global Witness, from an international perspective, these types of agreements are common. Since 2012, this NGO has been documenting the violence suffered by people who defend land and the environment. In addition, according to Furones, these types of agreements are often part of a strategy that has a goal of “silencing the community.” Furones believes that these lawsuits serve the same purpose.
“The moral and psychological damage is latent among all of us residents who are experiencing legal issues because of a multi-million-dollar company,” said Paola Tello, a Choapa Viejo resident who is being sued. To defend themselves, some people have hired a private attorney, and others have requested support from the municipality so that they can be backed by a lawyer. In most cases, they would not be able to pay the company even if they sold all their belongings.
Banner image: The Los Pelambres mine. Image by Antofagasta Minerals via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
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