Chile Finally Gets Tough on Mining Industry

Chile’s new office of the Environment Superintendent was only five months old when, last May, it took the country by surprise: It slammed the largest gold-mining company in the world, the Canada-based Barrick Gold Corporation, with a $16 million fine for water pollution and other environmental violations at its open-pit gold mine Pascua Lama. In response, Barrick Gold indefinitely suspended operations at the mine, which had cost $5 billion to construct. “Companies didn’t realize that the Superintendent was going to be so rigorous in its inspections,” says Ana Lya Uriarte, who was Chile’s environment minister when the law creating the Environment Superintendent was passed.
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/chile_finally_gets_tough_on_mining_industry