By Dave Sherwood
By Dave Sherwood
SANTIAGO, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Chile’s environmental regulator on Wednesday defended in court docket its approval of a plan by high lithium miner SQM to remediate injury to the Atacama salt flat, interesting a decrease court docket determination to scrap the settlement and setting the stage for a brand new and extended authorized battle.
Chile’s Environmental Superintendent (SMA) blessed SQM’s $25 million compliance plan in 2019 after a multi-year investigation that discovered SQM had over-drawn lithium-rich brine from the salt flat. However an area environmental court docket in Antofagasta in December invalidated the plan, calling it “inadequate.”
The regulator called the decrease court docket’s arguments that the plan failed to guard the atmosphere “unfounded.” It accused judges of cherry-picking info to favor its discovering and “omitting… proof that had been contemplated by the SMA.”
“These errors lead the judges to an incorrect conclusion,” the SMA mentioned in a sharply worded 63-page attraction. “The sentence is completely unjustified in minimizing the technical experience of the SMA.”
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