spent decades under Canadian ownership<\/a> before Solway acquired the project in 2011. At the time, Solway was widely acknowledged to be a Russian company. It is now based out of Zug, a known tax haven in Switzerland, and maintains it has no Russian ownership or capital.<\/p>\nGuatemalan authorities and Solway\u2019s subsidiaries have long denied that mining operations had anything to do with the discoloration of Lake Izabal in 2017. But internal documents included in the leak call this public narrative into question. CGN and government inspectors both documented a flow of rust-colored sediment entering the lake from the mine site around the time the water turned red, and emails exchanged by Pronico managers explicitly identified the mine as the source.<\/p>\n
Fishermen in El Estor, many of whom already suspected that mine pollution was affecting their catch, first spotted signs of discolored water toward the end of February. Not long afterward, the discoloration caught the attention of environmental regulators. One of many government documents found in the leak is a March 6 letter written by Maritza Aguirre, director of the agency responsible for monitoring Lake Izabal. Aguirre notified the director of legal compliance at Guatemala\u2019s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources that inspectors had found \u201cred-orange color water being discharged\u201d from a mining project exit channel into the lake.<\/p>\n
On March 11, CGN issued an internal inspection report complete with photographs. \u201cThe release of sediments in the lake was evident due to the reddish color of the water,\u201d the report noted. \u201cThe contrast in water color can be seen from far away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within days, Pronico email exchanges identified the mine as a source of the sediments. In a March 15 email to colleagues, Pronico\u2019s then-environmental manager noted that they needed to \u201cwork on a proposal to resolve and mitigate the issue of sediments coming from the mine\u201d as instructed by Pronico\u2019s then-general director. An email the following day notified the environmental manager of work plans \u201cto mitigate the pollution coming from [extraction] area 212.\u201d<\/p>\n
When pressed, Pronico acknowledged the existence of the CGN inspection report but stated that the sediment did not come from the mine but from rains above the extraction areas that followed their natural course through the Fenix site and into the lake.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of the Environment also acknowledged the red-orange discharge but maintained it was not connected to the discolored water along the town shoreline. \u201cIt had to do with a type of earth and minerals in that area,\u201d Carlos Casta\u00f1eda, director of environment and natural resource management, said of the sediment. \u201cIt is likely it was due to the reddish color leachates, which do not mean they are pollutants or that they originate precisely from the mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, both the company and government have stuck to the official story: Botryococcus braunii<\/em>, a micro-alga, caused the discoloration of the water along the shore of El Estor in 2017. Government and university labs found the micro-alga when they analyzed water samples taken by the lake monitoring authority. The studies were never made public, and neither were any of the reports on the flow of sediment into the lake around the same time.<\/p>\nJavier M\u00e1rquez is not sure he trusts the government lab results. He\u2019s the executive director of Defenders of Nature, an environmental foundation that manages several nationally protected areas in Guatemala, including a wetlands area west of El Estor where the Polochic River feeds into Lake Izabal. Foundation personnel take part in governmental water monitoring and occasional mine inspections. But M\u00e1rquez said the monitoring is woefully lacking.<\/p>\n
While he believes the mine has failed to adopt adequate environmental measures, \u201cthe government is more to blame for not demanding implementation,\u201d said M\u00e1rquez. \u201cThe actions of the Ministry of the Environment worry me. They are the ones truly responsible for monitoring and stopping all these bad practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less than a year after the fishers guild took to the streets over the lake turning red, another swath of discolored water showed up near the mine site. Pronico\u2019s environmental manager attributed it to \u201ca great quantity of suspended sediments\u201d in a report prepared for the company\u2019s general director. The sediment \u201coriginating in the mine area\u201d eventually drained into the lake, according to the April 2018 document, which also noted that sediment had been accumulating on the lake floor over several years of mining operations.<\/p>\n
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Sediments from Fenix mine extraction areas have washed into Lake Izabal, according to leaked documents.<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Joe Parkin Daniels<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cNo Record of the Spill\u201d<\/h2>\n
The leak also reveals substantial bunker fuel spills that Pronico kept hidden from government regulators. Executives were aware that the incidents put company representatives at risk of criminal prosecution, internal documents suggest.<\/p>\n
Under Guatemalan law, the crime of industrial pollution involves \u201cpollution of air, soil or water\u201d in the course of commercial or industrial activity, including \u201cdischarging products that could harm people, animals, forests or plantations.\u201d The crime is punishable by two to 10 years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
On August 14, 2016, a boiler at the ferronickel processing plant exploded, killing five workers. Pronico addressed potential environmental concerns according to established emergency procedures, administrative director Marvin M\u00e9ndez told Forbidden Stories partners. \u201cGovernment institutions visited the facilities in the month of August and did not identify any environmental impact,\u201d M\u00e9ndez said.<\/p>\n
An internal Pronico brief analyzing the company\u2019s legal exposure also stated that government institutions found no environmental impacts, but not because there weren\u2019t any. \u201cMinistries have no record of the spill. They have no evidence,\u201d noted the document, which Pronico\u2019s environmental manager prepared for company president Dmitry Kudryakov. The apparent aim of the October 2016 document was to assess what Guatemala\u2019s Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office, Ministry of the Environment, and Ministry of Energy and Mines might be able to prove about the incident.<\/p>\n
The explosion resulted in a spill of bunker fuel, lubricant, and process water into Lake Izabal, the document indicated, but regulators were in the dark. \u201cMinistries had to have carried out water quality monitoring in Lake Izabal. They did not do it,\u201d the document stated. \u201cMinistries do not have equipment to carry out dust and emission monitoring.\u201d The government agency responsible for monitoring wildlife, meanwhile, \u201cdoes not have capacity of time or resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
The document concluded that prosecutors could attempt to bring industrial pollution charges against company representatives, which could entail a jail sentence and fine.<\/p>\n
The details of another bunker fuel spill in November 2020 can be pieced together from several documents in the leak. An estimated 13.5 tons of fuel were cleaned up after the spill contaminated soil and water. At one point, those involved in the cleanup efforts ran out of the absorbent materials used to remove the fuel and resorted to using clothing. Risks associated with the spill included criminal prosecution and fines, according to environmental team presentations in the months following the incident.<\/p>\n
Aguirre, director of the Lake Izabal monitoring authority, said she did not think any major environmental incident would escape notice given the vigilance of community residents and civil society groups. Still, companies engaged in industrial activity \u201chave the obligation to report any incident that occurs related to environmental issues to the Ministry of the Environment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The environmental crimes bureau of the Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office \u201cis ready to proceed with a pertinent investigation if a new formal complaint is filed or if there is knowledge of possible pollution,\u201d a representative of the office told the Forbidden Stories consortium.<\/p>\n
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Maya Q’eqchi’ fishermen from the town of El Estor boat across Lake Izabal in 2018.<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Courtesy of Forbidden Stories<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThe Buying of Leaders\u201d<\/h2>\n
The leak reveals pollution not only of the lake but also of local politics. Documents show Solway\u2019s subsidiaries have long used financial incentives to secure support from communities around the mine. When a court ordered the government to suspend the company\u2019s extraction license pending consultation with Indigenous communities, the company stepped up its underhanded manipulation of local actors.<\/p>\n
A lack of consultation and consent when it comes to extractive industry in Guatemala has been a driver of social conflict for decades. In 1994, the country ratified an international convention requiring consultation with Indigenous peoples whose lives and lands could be impacted by natural resource development. But the government never fulfilled its duty to consult prior to issuing mining licenses, including for the Fenix project. So fishers guild members and El Estor residents took the government to court.<\/p>\n
In 2019, Guatemala\u2019s highest court ruled in favor of Indigenous residents, ordering the Ministry of Energy and Mines to suspend Solway\u2019s extraction license pending a consultation process. After long delays and another ruling reiterating the order, the ministry finally complied in February 2021.<\/p>\n\n
But the ruling did not lead to the free and fair consultation El Estor plaintiffs demanded. The government-led process relied heavily on leaders of recognized Maya Q\u2019eqchi\u2019 Councils and did not offer Indigenous residents any real veto power over the future of the mine\u2019s operations. Meanwhile, nickel-processing operations, subject to a different license, continued apace. The fishers guild and other residents excluded from the consultations formed their own ancestral councils in January 2021 to push for broader representation, while the company refocused its attempts to influence local politics.<\/p>\n
A spreadsheet in the leak breaks down a \u201cSocial investment plan for the community pre-consultation stage\u201d for 46 neighborhoods and villages in and around El Estor. The document suggests that CGN and Pronico planned to allot each community funding for improvements to water systems, sewers, roads, schools, and street lighting. But in two El Estor neighborhoods, Sina\u00ed and La Coroza, Pronico instead earmarked $390 for \u201ccompra de l\u00edderes\u201d: buying leaders.<\/p>\n
M\u00e9ndez, Pronico\u2019s administrative director, stated categorically that no leader in either neighborhood had been paid prior to consultation.<\/p>\n
But in the Q\u2019eqchi\u2019 community of Las Nubes, leaked emails describe payments that weren\u2019t just planned but carried out. Las Nubes residents live on top of key nickel reserves that CGN has pursued for at least 15 years, including under the mine\u2019s previous Canadian ownership. (Solway created Pronico as a second subsidiary two years after acquiring the project.) The community of several hundred people, who farm cardamom, maize, and other subsistence crops in the mountains, has faced eviction attempts and other displacement efforts. CGN and Pronico have also invested in the community \u2014 and apparently individual leaders \u2014 to secure access to mountaintop areas with extraction potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough the investment carried out and the buying of leaders, access to blocks 215 and 216-east is achieved,\u201d the head of Pronico\u2019s translation bureau wrote in a 2020 email. \u201cIn 2018, using the same strategies of social investment, buying of leaders and the case for road improvement, negotiating area 216-west is achieved,\u201d another 2020 email reads.<\/p>\n
When asked about these payments, M\u00e9ndez responded: \u201cThis information does not correspond to reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Community leaders and fishers guild members in El Estor also contend that the company has attempted to use\u00a0power and coercion to exert influence. The Intercept spoke with several people in El Estor who said they were approached \u2014 nearly always by individuals they suspected to be acting on behalf of the company \u2014 and offered money or a job for a relative in exchange for supporting the mine or formally withdrawing from legal proceedings. Two people said they were directly approached by people in power within Pronico. One of those two people was Enrique Xol.<\/p>\n
Xol wears many hats. He is a member of the newer ancestral council. He is an educator and one of the leaders of a local teachers union. And he is a coordinator with the local Catholic parish. But he was previously active in local politics, where his dissent could impact mining company plans.<\/p>\n
It was back when Xol was a multi-neighborhood delegate on the Municipal Development Council that he says he was approached, which he attributes to the fact that he always spoke his mind about the Fenix project. The record of a 2016 meeting between company representatives and community leaders at a tourist property east of town substantiates his claim of voicing concerns. That is where Xol said Pronico president Kudryakov asked to speak with him one-on-one, with the help of his translator.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018What do you want? Do you want a project? Do you want something?\u2019\u201d Xol recalled. Xol said he replied that he did not want anything. Asked whether Kudryakov offered a community leader enticements in exchange for support, M\u00e9ndez said the company complied with international standards in its activities with stakeholders.<\/p>\n
Xol also said that at one point, Pronico\u2019s community relations manager Maynor \u00c1lvarez showed up at his home and said Xol could be thrown in jail or see his house burned down if he kept speaking out. \u201cI was a nuisance for them,\u201d said Xol, shrugging slightly. M\u00e9ndez denied the allegation that \u00c1lvarez had issued threats of violence or criminalization.<\/p>\n
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Up in the mountains near the mine, an evangelical church stands in the village of Las Nubes, seen in December 2021.<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Julie Pietri\/Radio France<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThere Is No Consultation\u201d<\/h2>\n
When the new Community Development Council took office in the San Jorge neighborhood of El Estor at the beginning of this year, they discovered some irregularities. A document in the neighborhood book of records indicated that previous San Jorge leaders had signed off on proposed agreements in the court-ordered consultation process behind residents\u2019 backs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said they did consultation \u2026 but the consultation they did is no good,\u201d said Carlos Yat, the new vice president of the San Jorge council. \u201cFor us, consultation is done in an assembly.\u201d<\/p>\n
By law, a Community Development Council includes both the assembly \u2014 residents of a given neighborhood or village \u2014 and its elected coordinators. In practice, council leaders sometimes disregard the assembly and act on their own.<\/p>\n
Several dozen people, more than half of them women, arrived on foot at the open-air neighborhood meeting site: a cement floor with a roof offering protection from the drizzle. It was late January, and the new leaders in San Jorge had called an assembly to disclose what they had found. It lasted three hours. The large neighborhood has a mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents, so the council members explained things in both Q\u2019eqchi\u2019 and Spanish.<\/p>\n
Afterward, people stayed to chat while they waited to sign the assembly record. As is the custom, everyone confirms their attendance with a signature or thumbprint. It\u2019s what made the irregularity of the previous council\u2019s record immediately evident. It was only signed by a handful of the 13 council members. Community Development Council documents were included in a report that the Ministry of Energy and Mines submitted to the court to demonstrate fulfillment of the consultation process, which officially wrapped up in December.<\/p>\n
San Jorge was far from the only neighborhood with discontent over the actions of previous leaders. In another neighborhood in El Estor, the assembly ousted the entire council last year when people found out they had quietly signed support for the company.<\/p>\n
Even more objectionable to many residents was the key role that leaders of the government-recognized Council of Maya Q\u2019eqchi\u2019 Communities, or CCMQ, had in the consultation process. The grassroots formation of ancestral councils in January 2021 was in large part due to concerns about CCMQ leaders, who critics claim are in the pocket of mining companies.<\/p>\n
In 2020, the company\u2019s \u201cexpenses with the CCMQ\u201d amounted to $79,000, according to a Pronico summary.<\/blockquote>\nIt turns out those concerns were well-founded. Documents in the leak show Pronico supported, promoted, and funded the CCMQ ahead of the consultation, with the goal of strengthening the image of the council in the eyes of the government institutions and communities that would be participating. In 2020, the company\u2019s \u201cexpenses with the CCMQ\u201d amounted to $79,000, according to a Pronico summary authored by administrative director M\u00e9ndez.<\/p>\n
In spite of all the controversy over representation, the Minister of Energy and Mines signed a resolution on January 6, 2022, to reinstate the Fenix mine\u2019s extraction license. The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not looking for a fight,\u201d said Paulina Coc, sitting with a few of her grandchildren outside her family\u2019s home earlier this year. \u201cWhat we want to discuss is \u2026 why are we not taken into account?\u201d<\/p>\n