Environmental Tribunal Reverses Approval of Collahuasi Mining Project Due to Neglecting Indigenous Communities

Original article: Por no considerar debidamente a comunidades indígenas: Tribunal Ambiental anula RCA del proyecto de expansión de Minera Collahuasi Environmental Tribunal Reverses Approval of Collahuasi Project for Neglecting Indigenous Communities The Second Environmental Tribunal annulled the environmental qualification resolution (RCA) of the «Infrastructure Development and Productive Capacity Improvement of Collahuasi» project, valued at over US$ 3. 2 billion, on May 14. According to CNN Chile, the ruling accepted a complaint from the Indigenous Association Wilamasi of Fishermen Mamq’uta and the Aymara Indigenous Association of Caleta Chanavaya, which reported that their interests were not adequately considered during the evaluation process approved in December 2021.

The judgment – quoted by CNN Chile – mandates reverting the evaluation to prior to the Consolidated Evaluation Report (ICE). The tribunal emphasized: “The Indigenous associations from Caleta Chanavaya were not duly characterized”, adding that CONADI raised concerns during the appeal stage that, despite their clarity and significance, were ignored. Furthermore, the meetings required by Article 86 of the SEIA Regulation, a crucial mechanism for gathering information about direct impacts, were not conducted.

The second detected illegality directly impacts the desalination plant at Punta Patache (60 km south of Iquique), which would operate with capacities of 525 l/s and later 1,050 l/s from the eighth year onward. The tribunal found that the suction speed was not adequately verified, the sedimentation of the brine was not modeled for the medium and long term, and the marine monitoring plan was limited to the initial five years, disregarding future capacity expansions, despite public concerns about hypersaline impacts on the seabed. This project, one of the largest under construction in the country, aimed to increase the processing of sulfides from 170,000 to 210,000 tons daily.

With this ruling, the environmental evaluation must be redone starting from the ICE, including a new ICSARA that rectifies the legal violations. This decision sets a critical precedent: neither investor gigantism nor CONADI’s technical objections can bypass Indigenous consultations or the rigorous modeling of long-term marine impacts.