Solgold's Cascabel mine in northern Ecuador likely to be much worse than previously thought

Melbourne Rainforest Action Group/Friends of the Earth Australia

Key Facts:

200km mineral pipeline proposed to transport toxic slurry from mine to port in Northern Ecuador.

Numerous rivers and fifty small estuaries, including Mangrove Wildlife Refuges likely to be impacted.

600 million tons of waste will be generated by the mine and discharged into two tailings dams in the Santiago River basin. Risk of dam failure will be enourmous.

The area where the mine will be built has five seperate armed groups operating in the area.

The Cascabel mine will keep its economic benefits in Ecuador but will leave only contaminated water and sediments in Colombia.

The 200 km long Cascabel mine's mineral pipeline would affect 18 parishes in northern Esmeraldas and threaten the protected mangrove area of the Esmeraldas River.

The Australian company SolGold proposes the construction of a 200 km mineral pipeline that will transport the extracted ore from the Cascabel mine to the port of Esmeraldas. This would be a pipeline similar to an oil pipeline, transporting minerals in the form of a slurry, obtained by mixing mineral powder from the mine with water in a 60% to 40% ratio, thus creating an enormous demand for water. This infrastructure would have a high risk of failures and ruptures, causing the slurry to spill outside the pipeline. This mineral concentrate contains copper and other heavy metals such as cadmium and lead, and would pose a threat to the environment and human health.

The mineral pipeline would cross over the Rioverde, Cayapas, and Santiago rivers, but also over smaller ones such as the Lagarto, Ostiones, Mate, Colope rivers, and other watercourses that join the Pacific Ocean following a North-South direction. From its starting point at the Cascabel mine until it approaches the road leading to Esmeraldas, it would also affect almost fifty small estuaries and the Cachaví, Bogotá, and Zaspi rivers. The pipeline's route would generate a high risk of contamination of the water resources and transitional and coastal waters throughout northern Esmeraldas. Due to the topography of the 30 km coastline between Rioverde and Esmeraldas, the mineral pipeline must be routed through or near populated areas and close to the sea. In this area, social conflicts would arise over land rights needed for infrastructure construction, and slurry spills would be very difficult to control before they contaminate coastal waters.

Finally, the mineral pipeline would have to cross the Esmeraldas River to reach the port. The mineral pipeline could cross the river by following the bridge and highway connecting Tachina to Esmeraldas, but it would have to traverse the Esmeraldas River Mangrove Wildlife Refuge all the way to the port to bypass residential areas. This is the same area that is already at great risk from ruptures and spills from the oil industry pipeline such as what occurred in March 2025. Alternatively, the mineral pipeline could cross the river at a point between Las Piedras and the Coronel Carlos Concha Torres airport runway and reach the port via an elevated viaduct, but this solution would have a significant visual impact at the mouth of the Esmeraldas River. Either option would pose a high risk of direct spills into the mangroves and transitional waters of the Esmeraldas River in the event of slurry leaks.

The Cascabel mine, Ecuador's largest mining project, is located in the Mira River basin in northern Ecuador. The mining company SolGold has signed a contract with the Ecuadorian government to operate Cascabel. The Cascabel concession will generate over 600 million tons of waste (tailings), which will primarily be discharged into two tailings ponds in the Santiago River basin. Additionally, two tailings ponds will be built in the Mira River basin for the initial phases of Cascabel's development. The tailings deposited in these ponds can produce acidic leachates and contain copper, heavy metals, and binding chemicals used in mineral processing. SolGold also proposes using cyanide to recover gold from these tailings.

The tailings will drain contaminated water that will affect the Cachabí and Bogotá rivers, the entire lower Santiago River and its mouth, as well as the Cachaco and Parambas rivers, the Mira River, and all the channels that make up its mouth between Cabo Manglares and the city of Tumaco in an area of more than 400 km². In total, over 500 km of river channels (191 km in Ecuador and 413 km in Colombia) will be affected by Cascabel's tailings. The Santiago and Mira rivers have rich aquatic biodiversity, with over 62 freshwater fish species, five of which are endemic, and three are classified as vulnerable or threatened.

Cascabel's activities and tailings will impact ecological reserves and ancestral territories and communities in Ecuador and Colombia. They will affect the Awá Bioanthropological Reserve and the La Turbia Indigenous Reserve, which form part of the ancestral Awá territory on both sides of the border between Ecuador and Colombia with nearly 2000 km² protected. In total, 100 km of river channels within the two reserves will be affected: 23 km of the Bogotá River, 12 km of the Cachabí River at the reserve's border, and 64 km of the Mira River. It will also affect the Manglares Cayapas-Mataje Ecological Reserve at the mouth of the Santiago-Cayapas River, spanning 564 km², where 13 ancestral Black communities have custody agreements for the sustainable exploitation of mangrove resources, mainly shellfish and crab, which, along with fishing, are their main economic resources. At the mouth of the Mira River in Colombia, it will affect the Cabo Manglares, Bajo Mira y Frontera National Park, spanning 1902 km². This is an emblematic natural site because Cabo Manglares is the westernmost point of Colombia and an important nesting area for sea turtles. Even though these protected areas are far from Cascabel, they will be the ultimate recipients of the sediments transported by the rivers from the mine's tailings ponds, because mangroves retain large quantities of sediments. Mangroves act as nurseries for commercially important marine fish, are important carbon sinks, and harbor characteristic species that depend on the diverse aquatic food web. These ecosystem services will decrease or disappear when contaminated sediments from Cascabel begin to deposit in the mangroves.

The Cascabel mine will generate the largest environmental impact from mining development in recent Latin American history, affecting the last protected areas of the Chocó coastal region in Esmeraldas (Ecuador) and Nariño (Colombia). The mangroves located between the mouths of the Santiago-Cayapas and Mira rivers will receive contaminated sediments discharged by the Cascabel mine's tailings ponds. More than 80 km of coastline and the associated marine-coastal region, which boasts great biodiversity and high ecological value, will disappear due to the operation of the Cascabel mine.

The northern border between Ecuador and Colombia is merely an administrative boundary, as there's great cultural similarity on both sides. This is a conflictive border with five recognized armed groups operating in the territory that have the capacity to infiltrate Ecuador, as demonstrated by the attack on the San Lorenzo police barracks and the murder of three journalists by the Oliver Sinisterra Front group in 2018, or the presence of FARC dissident guerrillas 300 km from the border. Additionally, 50% of the cocaine produced in Colombia is transported to Ecuador for trafficking to the United States, Europe, and various Pacific countries. Besides insecurity and violence, similar problems have been identified in both countries, such as extreme poverty, lack of basic services, deficient infrastructure, and environmental deterioration. The need for joint actions for the development of these border regions was recognized as early as the 1940s. In 1990, the Border Integration Zone was established between Colombia and Ecuador, primarily to regulate vehicle circulation. Subsequently, the Andean Community established Border Integration Zones as a tool for transnational development and integration in 2001. In 2014, the Ecuador-Colombia Binational Border Integration Plan was presented, based on social and economic development, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, and pacification.

The Cascabel mine will keep its economic benefits in Ecuador but will leave only contaminated water and sediments in Colombia. The Cascabel mine itself, located 20 km from the border, and the necessary infrastructure for its operation could become future targets for armed groups if they come into conflict with the Ecuadorian government. Aside from the negative environmental and social impacts caused by Cascabel's tailings, this project will not contribute to the social and economic development needed for peacebuilding in the area on both sides of the border. On the contrary, Cascabel will be a source of greater economic inequality and conflict throughout its operational life of over 100 years, destroying three decades of work towards cross-border integration.

Contact details:

Contact: Liz Downes 0415308041

https://rainforestactiongroup.org/