Chile indigenous group asks regulators to suspend lithium miner SQM’s permits – by Dave Sherwood (Reuters – September 13, 2021)

https://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Indigenous communities living around Chile’s Atacama salt flat have asked authorities to suspend lithium miner SQM’s operating permits or sharply reduce its operations until it submits an environmental compliance plan acceptable to regulators, according to a filing viewed by Reuters.

Chile’s SMA environmental regulator in 2016 charged SQM with overdrawing lithium-rich brine from the Salar de Atacama salt flat, prompting the company to develop a $25 million plan to bring its operations back into compliance. Authorities approved that plan in 2019 but reversed their decision in 2020, leaving the company to start again from scratch on a potentially tougher plan.

That ongoing process has left the fragile environment of the desert salt flat in limbo and unprotected as SQM continues to operate, according to a letter from the Atacama Indigenous Council (CPA) submitted to regulators last week.

In the filing, the indigenous council said the ecosystem was in “constant danger” and called for the “temporary suspension” of SQM’s environmental approvals or, where appropriate, “to reduce the extraction of brine and freshwater from the Salar de Atacama.”

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