Guatemala’s government on Friday suspended the decision to approve the environmental conditions for the exploitation of an open-pit gold and silver mine that had been granted to a Canadian group, which was denounced by environmental protection organizations, its officials announced.

“The Ministry of the Environment has decided that the environmental licensing process must be modified,” Minister Patricia Orantes explained during a press conference.

Due to “anomalies found, the open pit mining license cannot be granted. The company will have to carry out a new environmental impact study”, added the Minister of Energy, Mines and Mining, Victor Hugo Ventura.

The Canadian company Bluestone Resources intended to mine more than 250 million cubic meters of the subsoil to exploit gold and silver deposits in the municipality of Asuncion Mita, east of the capital, near the border with El Salvador.

But environmental protection organizations and representatives of the local community express concern that the mine will pollute the Guija, a lake shared by Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as the Lemba River, which originates in Guatemala and is the main water source from which the water used by the water supply system of the Salvadoran capital is pumped.

Open pit mining has a “serious impact in terms of potential contamination” of water, “loss of fertile land, flora and fauna, and geomorphological alterations due to the extraction” of millions of cubic meters of material from the soil and subsoil, Ms. Orandes summarized.

In 2022, the government of right-wing ex-president Alejandro Yamatei ignored a consultation of residents of Asuncion Mita who opposed the operation of the mine.

The license for the outdoor facility, which followed the license for the underground facility, was issued on January 9, in other words five days before the end of Mr. Yamatei’s term.

The Environment Minister emphasized that the amendment implies “a completely new plan, different from the original one”.

According to Mrs. Orantes, forged signatures were found in the approval of the license in question, while hundreds of pages of the required documents were missing.