- Colombia is looking to accelerate its energy transition amid growing international demand for strategic minerals. But activists from El Carmen de Atrato in Chocó, western Colombia, allege that El Roble, the country’s only active copper mine, is harming the environment and local community.
- The Atrato River, which flows beneath El Roble, was granted constitutional rights in 2016, yet activists raise long-standing concerns over water pollution, tailings dam risks and alleged failures to meet conservation commitments in the area surrounding the mine.
- Critics say the mine has been allowed to operate under antiquated environmental regulation, with a modern environmental licence still under review.
- El Roble rejects all allegations, stating it is a responsible business that complies with environmental regulations. The company says it is the primary source of employment in El Carmen and points to its track record of local investment and community projects.
“People bathe in the river, they eat from the river — they live, dance and sing there,” says Dora Agudelo Vázquez. “Their whole lives are bound to the river.”
Agudelo Vazquez, one of the guardians of the Atrato River, is sitting on a park bench in the main square of her hometown of El Carmen de Atrato, in Colombia’s northwestern Chocó department. “In these 30 years of mining, the river has suffered a lot,” she says.
By night, this square is full of life. Beneath the stone façade of the central church, vendors sell hot food from densely packed marquees, many of which display the words “Minera El Roble — Estamos Contigo” (“We Are With You”). Children jump between small groups of heavy-booted workers who gather around the food stalls. Their overalls carry the same logo: Minera El Roble.
El Roble, Colombia’s only active copper mine, is about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) north of the town square. It sits at the base of a valley crossed by the Atrato River, which flows over about 700 km (435 miles) and in 2016 was recognized as a subject of constitutional rights by a Colombian court. This court also ordered the creation of the Guardian Commission, consisting of 14 guardians entrusted with monitoring compliance with the ruling.
But Agudelo Vázquez, along with several environmental NGOs and local community groups, allege that El Roble is harming the river’s health, accusing the mine of failing to meet conservation commitments, having weak regulatory oversight and polluting the Atrato. In response, the mining company rejects the allegations and states its business is sustainable and follows the law.
Their claims come amid a growing demand for copper. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has prioritized investment in the energy transition, positioning strategic minerals such as copper as key to the country’s long-term shift away from fossil fuels.
Operating since 1990, Minera El Roble S.A. (MINER) was acquired in 2013 by Atico Mining Corporation, a Canadian multinational owning a 90% share of the mine and its assets. Since it bought the mine, Atico has more than doubled its mineral processing capacity, from 400 to 1,000 metric tons/day. The project includes the underground mine and processing facility as well as four tailings dams alongside the Atrato River.
Declared a Project of National and Strategic Interest (PINE) in 2018, El Roble remains a prominent project in Colombia’s push for transition minerals. In 2024, the mine produced 13.7 million pounds of copper, an increase of 3% over 2023. El Roble aims to expand its operation across the wider municipality of El Carmen de Atrato, listing 21 prospective exploration targets across its mineral concessions covering 6,355 hectares (15,700 acres).
Claims of contamination
Communities along the Atrato River have long been plagued by mercury pollution linked to illegal gold mining. However, being close to the source of the river, El Carmen is insulated from the illegal extraction that affects communities farther downstream. Instead, some El Carmen residents say the contamination they see stems from the El Roble project.
“If you talk to someone who works for El Roble, they will tell you that the mine does not contaminate — that the water exits the mine cleaner than it enters,” Agudelo Vázquez says. “This is a lie.”
A 2017 study by Terrae, a Colombian NGO and research group that has investigated mining projects along the Atrato River in the municipality of Carmen del Atrato, found significant increases in the conductivity of the river water, which can signal more dissolved solids, as well as high concentrations of sulfate, heavy metals and metalloids (such as lead and arsenic) in the Atrato River in the vicinity of El Roble.
The study also reports a reduction in aquatic organisms downstream of the tailings dams, a pattern that Terrae says is consistent with waters contaminated by mining projects.
In their reply to Mongabay, MINER disputes the findings of this report, saying water quality has been periodically verified by accredited external laboratories. They point to more than 40 water testing points, with results submitted to the environmental authority every six months. According to the mine, no existing studies demonstrate any noncompliance with existing environmental regulations. The company also points to three studies done with external companies that show good ecological conditions in the river.
However, Colombian environmental and human rights NGO SIEMBRA has documented at least six instances, dating back to 2009, of pollutants being released into the Atrato River by El Roble’s operation. For instance, the NGO says, in August 2009, the rupture of a tailings dam resulted in the spill of 5,000 cubic meters (176,500 cubic feet) of waste into the river. In August 2017, overflows from two separate tailings dams (1 and 4) reportedly carried a further 1,435 kilograms (3,162 pounds) of untreated waste into the water, while pipeline ruptures documented in May 2019 and February 2021 released more pollutants into the river.
MINER acknowledges there have been “environmental contingencies,” adding that all accidents have been promptly reported to Chocó’s regional environmental authority (Codechocó) and corrective measures have been implemented. They say results derived from laboratory testing demonstrate that their tailings are inert and “do not generate contamination.” According to El Roble, any impact on the Atrato has been temporary.
Some El Carmen residents do not agree.
“We used to go fishing in the river, we used to swim,” says Ramon Cartagena, 60, an El Carmen resident and head of the Social and Environmental Table, a local community platform that monitors social and environmental issues in the municipality. “Today, there are no fish there. We can’t swim there anymore, as the water causes rashes.”
He is referring to the stretch of water between the mine and the community of El Siete, around 4 km (2.5 mi) to the south of the main town, an area unaffected by the illegal mining that plagues the Atrato River farther downstream.
Locals such as Cartagena link the declining water quality and fish populations to El Roble. But in its response to Mongabay, the company says their studies show good environmental conditions for aquatic life and attributes the drop in fish population to seasonal rainfall and high levels of erosion upstream.
In its letter to Mongabay, MINER rejects a potential link between the mine and reports of skin health issues, which, during a meeting with the community, locals have associated with mercury exposure. The company states that its operations don’t use mercury, a common pollutant often associated with illegal mining, although studies by authorities have shown no mercury concentrations associated with the mine. MINER also states that sanitary issues with the river stem from the municipality’s lack of sewage treatment facility.
However, along La Trocha, a segment of the main road going from the department’s capital of Quibdo to Medellín, some locals say El Roble has contributed to water pollution in their stretch of the Atrato. El Nueve, a community about 15 km (9.3 mi) downstream from El Roble, is already affected by an illegal gold mine operating there for the last decade, according to locals in El Carmen.
But El Nueve residents like Ramiro de Jesus Giraldo, 67, say fish stocks began declining before illegal mining came to the area, when El Roble was the only active mine. Watching from Giraldo’s house, one can see the Atrato River cutting through the valley below.
“In the afternoons, my father used to go down to the river to fish with my older brothers,” the farmer says, remembering his childhood. “They would come back at 10 or 11 p.m. with a load of barbudos, zabaleta, briolas, capitanes.” Giraldo says they could catch up to 50 fish in a single outing compared with about five or six today.
However, Carlos Alberto Jimenez Vargas, who has worked as a mineral processing officer at El Roble for the last 27 years, says the mine is an environmentally conscious business. “In terms of the environment, they are complying,” he tells Mongabay. “One of the companies of this type here in Colombia that does meet environmental standards is Minera El Roble.”
In MINER’s 2024 Sustainability Report, the mine points to two air quality monitoring stations as well as more than 750 hectares (1,850 acres) of protected area split between seven different zones protected by El Roble. In April, it was also announced that El Roble would be investing 2 billion Colombian pesos (about $530,000) into an environmental monitoring program in the protected area of La Cristalina, to the south of the main town.
But Jimenez Vargas remains concerned. “What worries most people, and me as well, is where the waste is placed,” he says.
From the road leading from the town to El Roble, a wall-like structure can be seen carving across the far hillside. This is tailings dam number 4, the largest of El Roble’s six tailings facilities.
Containing wet mining waste, the dam is a few hundred meters from the town center and just above the Atrato River. Decommissioned since 2022 and just 250 meters (820 feet) from the El Carmen’s municipal hospital, the dam worries the community. “The day the river rises significantly, it could carry off those tailings deposits,” says Jimenez Vargas. “In the future, all of that could end up in the rivers and the sea.”
MINER says the National Mining Agency (ANM) has confirmed the dam does not pose a risk to the community, reiterating that it has technical stability studies that ANM and Codechocó have reviewed.
Several NGOs have questioned the effectiveness of those studies.
According to SIEMBRA, the dam was built in a geologically unstable area and lacked adequate prior analysis. In its report, Terrae also confirms the region’s high level of vulnerability to seismic events, pointing to satellite imagery, which they say demonstrates a heightened susceptibility to landslides and flooding in the vicinity of El Roble — factors that place downstream communities at risk from tailings dam collapse. Terrae’s report also expresses concern that the presence of tailings dams reduces the floodplain area, meaning water levels would be higher in the event of flooding.
Given the environmental concerns raised around the project, some experts say El Roble is at odds with the sustainable goals of the green energy transition.
Miguel Cáceres, a Terrae geologist and author of their 2023 report on Colombia’s energy transition, says El Roble is one of several transition mineral projects in the country with troubling environmental and human rights records.
“The actions of these businesses are not consistent with the idea of sustainability or a green transition,” he says, claiming that transition mineral mining companies, such as El Roble, are able to take advantage of the pro-climate discourse surrounding the green energy transition.
“Projects that mine transition minerals present the same risks as classic extractivism — environmental damage, for example,” he says.
In Cáceres’ 2023 report for Terrae, he identifies seven such projects across Colombia, including El Roble, that he says present an environmental and human rights risk to the surrounding communities.
Doubts over environmental oversight
After 35 years of operation, El Roble does not have the environmental license required by Colombia’s Mining Code (Article 85). Instead, it continues to operate with a less stringent environmental management plan (PMA), the legal requirement when the initial contract was signed in 1987.
“Both the company and the authorities assume that the project can continue operating without an instrument like the environmental license, which we consider illegal under Colombia’s Mining Code,” says Viviana González Moreno, subdirector of SIEMBRA.
On May 23, ANM granted El Roble a new contract to exploit its existing title for another 30 years, after the company agreed to settle unpaid royalties of about 119 billion pesos ($31.5 million) dating from 2014. The previous contract had expired in 2022, though this didn’t halt El Roble’s operations.
Gonzalez Moreno says the existing PMA lacks the required studies for effective environmental mitigation.
“These management plans don’t have an environmental impact study,” she says, “so they don’t arise from a rigorous evaluation of environmental impact.”
In response, MINER says the 2001 PMA is a legal environmental instrument that all necessary authorities have reviewed. The company also points out that an environmental impact study was submitted in September, as the mine attempts to obtain a new environmental licence. The company states that, while this new environmental licence application is being evaluated, they are legally able to continue exploitation under a transition regime.
SIEMBRA has also criticized Codechocó for failing to impose sanctions on El Roble for unauthorized waste discharge in the Atrato.
As stipulated by its PMA signed in 2001, El Roble has the legal obligation to reforest 5 hectares (12.4 acres) per year, planting 1,000 trees per hectare. However, at the end of 2024, SIEMBRA reported that only about 12 hectares (30 acres) had been reforested throughout the mine’s 35-year operational period. But, according to SIEMBRA, Codechocó did not hold the company to account for missing its deforestation commitments, instead striking a deal with El Roble that allows the company to reforest only 30 hectares (74 acres) for the period between 2001 and 2018, compared with the 90 required. “Codechocó has been extremely deficient and overly permissive,” Cartagena says.
MINER rejects SIEMBRA’s claims, saying it has complied every year with its original reforestation quotas from 2001. They state that this has been verified by Codechocó.
Codechocó did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment.
Activists also express doubts over the independence of El Roble’s water testing, which they say is conducted by the company and reviewed periodically by Codechocó. El Roble assures that its water testing is carried out by external companies accredited by IDEAM, the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies. The mine also claims to have installed two automatic stations that transmit real-time information to the environmental authority.
But distrust still exists in the community. “On a few occasions, they have taken us [to where the water is monitored] to show that everything is good, but I don’t believe this because they can manipulate the results,” says Agudelo Vázquez. “Everything can be manipulated.”
A changing economic landscape
In other communities across the wider municipality of El Carmen de Atrato, some residents fear the consequences of El Roble’s possible future expansion.
“I imagine the fish are going to be harmed, like what happened in El Carmen, says Diana Isabel Foronda Valderrama, a resident of the community of La Argelia, about 20 km (12 mi) away by road from El Carmen. Locals report that Atico Mining has already carried out exploration drilling here.
Outside, heavy rain rattles against the metal bones of an old playground. In a valley below runs a tributary of the Atrato. Unaffected by mining, residents still fish in these waters — but some fear the arrival of a new mining project in the area could threaten water quality and agriculture.
El Roble’s history is deeply linked to the area’s violent past, having filled the economic hole left by an agricultural industry crippled by historic conflict. Some residents and experts point to the success of El Roble as one key factor that stopped the farming industry from recovering, saying that the mine introduced an economic dynamic that reinforced the abandonment of the agricultural sector.
Once the region’s food basket, the municipality of El Carmen has seen its farming sector decimated by violence. Locals remember a time when cattle markets were held in the town, and the square bustled with farmers selling produce. Three trucks of goods were once exported weekly to Quibdó, locals say; now, almost nothing is going out.
Like much of El Carmen, La Argelia has paid for Colombia’s violent history. Foronda Valderrama and her family were displaced three times in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “There was a lot of violence,” she remembers. “They killed people, they burned down all the houses.”
“Young people have left to search for work in the mine or in small businesses in El Carmen,” says Ana Gertrudis Sanchez, 60, from the farming community of Guaduas, about 25 km (15.5 mi) south of the main town. Perched on a wooden block in her kitchen, she sits shucking corn as light streams in through slats in the walls. Grey-green husks fall loosely to the floor. In 2011, on a spot a few feet away, her husband was killed by members of an armed group.
Only a handful of young people now remain in Guaduas. “We have been forgotten here,” Sanchez says.
MINER says the mine has had a positive impact on those affected by violence, claiming that it offers employment to families who otherwise would have been displaced to other areas. El Roble also claims to have participated in efforts to revitalize the region’s agricultural economy, supporting local coffee and avocado farmers, as well as more than 50 community agricultural projects.
The company rejects any link between mining and agricultural decline in El Carmen, citing the fact that the mining operation takes up less than 0.1% of the municipal territory.
As its agriculture has failed, El Carmen has become deeply dependent on El Roble. The primary source of employment in the area, the mine has also invested in schools and local sports teams, while its donations to the community are reflected in the many branded marquees in the town’s main square carrying the company’s logo.
MINER says it has spent 117 billion pesos ($31 million) on local purchases in the last five years.
But some say the mine’s monopoly over employment has led to a situation where it is able to take advantage of workers.
“Salaries are, let’s say, low,” Jimenez Vargas says. “Here, we don’t have another company of this type, so they have no competition.”
According to Juan Pablo Taborda, head of the local branch of the miners’ union Sintramienergética, unionized workers are commonly paid about 1.5 million pesos (just under $400) per month. Taborda tells Mongabay that El Roble frequently uses third-party hiring, short-term 3-month contracts and dismisses long-standing union members under claims of restructuring the company.
He says that because many workers at El Roble are not from the area, much of the salary income leaves the community instead of being reinvested locally.
In response, El Roble says it complies with labor regulations and fulfills all of its legal responsibilities as an employer, pointing out that all of its hiring practices, including the use of short-term contracts, are legal. El Roble rejects the claim regarding illegal outsourcing of its employees, saying that workers hired through contractors perform support roles outside the core mining operation.
The mine attributes the restructuring to “a situation of a contingent nature derived from the specific conditions of the deposit,” claiming the company always seeks to maintain jobs and guarantees a transparent process.
In response to the claim that many workers are not from El Carmen, El Roble says it is the main private employer in the municipality. According to the information supplied by the company, of 454 employees, 214 are not from El Carmen.
According to the SIEMBRA report, El Roble’s active copper-gold deposit could be exhausted in the next five years.
Given El Carmen’s dependence on the mine, perhaps the biggest concern for residents is the apparent lack of a strategy for managing the mine’s closure once the deposit is exhausted.
MINER says this is still a long way off, claiming that its exploration activity is likely to yield further resources that will keep the mine operational for many more years. The company also says its environmental and social management plan includes guidelines for responsible closure in line with current regulations.
But residents remain concerned about the consequences of a possible closure.
“We are not prepared for when the mine closes,” Agudelo Vazquez says. “We are dependent on the mine. Last year, there was a strike for three months, and the town collapsed. Business owners couldn’t pay what they owed, they didn’t have anybody to sell to. We could see this in three months — what would have happened if it had lasted a year? Chaos.”
While the mine supports Colombia’s energy transition plans, communities remain vocal about the social and environmental costs of extractivism. Meanwhile, scientists, NGOs and the company itself appear to be far from a consensus on the actual impact of the project on the protected Atrato River.
As El Roble awaits an updated environmental license and investigates expansion options, local activists continue to demand tighter environmental controls and effective community participation in decision-making.
For the guardians of the Atrato, these unresolved disputes mean the future of the Upper Atrato is far from guaranteed.
“I hope that people take into account that human beings are more important than money,” Agudelo Vazquez says. “For me, I would like to die knowing that the Atrato continues to live.
Banner image: The operational zone of the El Roble copper mine in El Carmen de Atrato, Chocó. The mine sits in a steep valley crossed beneath by the Atrato River. Image by Euan Wallace.
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