Cobre Panama present at Environmental Forum organized by APEDE

– 99% of the water used by Cobre Panama in its operations comes from rainfall.

Panama, June 29, 2023 – With the support of Cobre Panama, the Panamanian Association of Business Executives (APEDE) held this year’s Environmental Forum entitled “Vision and Perspectives: Water, Environment and Mobility”.

This Forum has established itself as an important space to learn about the various initiatives and actions of companies and organizations to help preserve our natural resources, while reflecting on the short, medium and long term challenges for our country and the world in terms of the environment.

Iliana Rodriguez, Environmental Officer of Cobre Panama, participated with the presentation “Water Resources Management at Cobre Panama, a Model for Responsible Mining” and shared with the attendees data on the environmental commitments of the mining company as part of its Environmental Impact Study category III, the use of water within the mine, highlighting that 99% comes from rainfall, and gave an overview of the monitoring system of water quality that the company has.

It is important to note that the mine has a very robust and complete water quality monitoring program that covers 360 degrees around the mine, with more than 200 monitoring points, with daily, weekly, biweekly and monthly frequency. The number of parameters reaches more than 100: 66 total/dissolved metals, 5 anions, 15 physicochemicals.

It also has 30 real-time water quality stations, measuring more than 10 parameters every 15 minutes with real-time CCTV video cameras.

Another initiative of great relevance is the Citizen Participatory Monitoring, which has been carried out for more than 10 years, in which 14 communities near Cobre Panama participate and carry out monitoring campaigns periodically. In these
campaigns, community leaders take water samples from the tributaries and take care of sending them to independent laboratories in the United States.

In the last 12 years, Cobre Panama has invested more than US$53 million in its environmental management plan, achieving positive results in its environmental management and biodiversity conservation plans.