Copper San Romeleo Project Receives Environmental Impact Declaration

The Mendoza Senate unanimously approved on Tuesday the Environmental Impact Declaration for the Copper San Romeleo project, a small-scale initiative aimed at producing copper oxide for the manufacture of agricultural fungicides used in viticulture and other regional crops. The vote, without dissent, consolidates the advancement of a project that completed all environmental evaluation stages required by provincial regulations.

The process involved the participation of technical, scientific, academic, provincial and municipal bodies that intervened in the various stages of analysis prior to legislative consideration. The unanimous approval in the chamber marks a turning point for an undertaking that, by its scale, differs from the major copper projects the province is analyzing in parallel.

A small-scale project with agro-industrial focus

Unlike the megaprojects for copper aimed at supplying export markets for the electronics and clean energy industries, Copper San Romeleo has a more limited objective: to generate copper oxide as an input for agricultural fungicides. This type of compound has historically been used in controlling fungal diseases in vineyards and other fruit and vegetable crops, a demand that holds direct relevance in Mendoza given the weight of viticulture in the provincial economy.

The reduced scale of the project allows its environmental assessment to be resolved in shorter timeframes than larger initiatives, although it nonetheless required compliance with all technical and public participation stages contemplated in Mendoza's mining and environmental procedure law.

Public hearing with broad support

One of the findings highlighted by the provincial administration following the vote was the result of the Public Hearing held prior, a mandatory stage within the environmental impact assessment procedure. According to reports, more than 90% of the expressions presented at that instance were favorable to the project's development, a percentage that in Mendoza—a province where mining discussions have historically generated social polarization—carries significant political and symbolic value.

Provincial Law 7,722, which regulates the use of chemical substances in Mendoza's mining activity, and its successive amendments, constitute the regulatory framework under which all mining projects in the territory are evaluated, including San Romeleo. Compliance with this regulatory framework, combined with the intervention of academic and technical bodies, was presented as a guarantee of rigor in the approval process.

Mining and agriculture, a complementarity under debate

The project's approval reopened official Mendoza discourse on the possibility of articulating mining activity with the province's traditional regional economies, particularly viticulture. According to remarks by the Minister of Energy and Environment, Jimena Latorre, "Mendoza can continue diversifying its productive matrix and, at the same time, strengthen activities that are already part of our productive identity. Mining and agriculture can complement each other, add value to our resources and generate new opportunities for Mendozans."

"We are demonstrating with concrete cases that the contradiction between mining and sustainability is a myth, an unfounded fear. We are demonstrating through management that Mendoza has opportunities to continue growing."

This discourse is part of a broader provincial strategy that in recent years has sought to shift its public image away from historical resistance to large-scale metal mining, while maintaining the framework of existing chemical restrictions. Cases such as Copper San Romeleo, of smaller scale and with a use destined to the province's own agro-industrial chain, are presented by the administration as evidence that extractive activity can coexist with traditional regional economies.

Next steps and pending stages

With the Environmental Impact Declaration approved by the Senate, the project is enabled to advance toward subsequent stages of mining development, which in general terms include obtaining specific construction permits, defining investment timelines and initiating infrastructure works necessary before reaching the effective production phase. The available information does not specify committed investment amounts, the identity of the company in charge of the project, its exact departmental location or the number of jobs expected to be generated—aspects that will presumably become known as the project advances toward its next administrative and operational stages.