Indigenous groups in Chile´s lithium-rich Atacama salt flat, fresh off a resounding legal victory earlier this week, said on Friday they will push to see top lithium miner SQM´s environmental permits revoked and its operations shut down.
The Atacama Indigenous Council (CPA) in 2019 filed a lawsuit demanding regulators scrap a $25 million remediation plan developed by SQM after officials charged the miner with over- pumping lithium-rich brine from the salt flat.
The indigenous groups won, but the regulator earlier this year appealed to Chile´s Supreme Court, defending the SQM plan. On Wednesday, however, the regulator suddenly pulled out of the legal battle, forcing SQM to start again from scratch on a new, potentially tougher, plan.