Chile: Lawsuit against Celco for pollution

By Chris Lang (September 2007):

The Chilean State Defence Council (CDE) has filed a 2 billion peso (US$3.9 million) lawsuit against Celulosa Arauco y Constitución SA (Celco) for environmental damage and health risks caused by the company’s pollution of the Matauito River.

Antonia Fortt, head of NGO Oceana‘s Marine Contamination campaign, said the lawsuit will be of interest also to other communities which have suffered pollution from CELCO’s pulp plants – communities like Valdivia, Mehuín, Arauco, Nueva Aldea, and Constitución.

World Bank consultant says CELCO’s Valdivia mill should never have been built there

Neil McCubbin is a former pulp and paper engineer turned consultant. Earlier this year he was hired by the World Bank as a member of a panel of consultants to review the IFC’s cumulative impact studies of the Botnia and Ence pulp mills in Uruguay.

CELCO opens fourth pulp mill in Chile

At the end of August 2006, Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (CELCO) opened its fourth pulp mill in Chile. The 858,000 t/yr mill is part of CELCO’s Nueva Aldea Forestry and Industrial Complex. The pulp mill cost US$1.4 billion and is in the valley of Itata, in the region of Bío-Bío, 400 kilometres south of Santiago.