The Chilean Supreme Court has accepted a request from local not-for-profit organizations against a $2.5 billion iron ore project and decided to hand it back to a lower court, the nation’s first environmental court.
The Supreme Court said the local environmental court will decide if the project meets all environmental requirements to move forward.
The Supreme Court decisions follow a series of setbacks, and reverses a previous decision by another court, the Chilean Tribunal Constitucional (TC), which denied a ban on the project, following a request by the same organizations.
Chilean copper and iron ore company Andes Iron plans to develop a $2.5 billion iron ore project, known as Dominga. The project aims to produce up to 12 million mt of iron ore per year.
Local environmental regulator SEA was the first reject the project in March 2017. Then, Coquimbo’s environment commission had also banned it. In August 2017, a minister council kept the project ban. Since then, Andes Iron had been appealing the case.
More recently, in May 2018, an environmental court ordered the project to be re-evaluated. Then, a Chilean not-for-profit (NGO) organization asked for a ban in the project. Chile’s TC denied the NGO request.