Dirty water, toxic air: Life beside Glencore’s mammoth coal mine

As Grismaldo, an Indigenous Wayúu man in his early 20s, walks along the banks of the Ranchería, he recalls how the river used to provide drinking water for more than 1,500 people from his community in northern Colombia.

“Everyone here used to benefit. They used the water for washing and bathing,” he says. “[But] some animals that drank from these waters became ill or died for no apparent reason.” Once drinkable, the Ranchería’s water now runs visibly dark.

The cause, communities say, lies upstream: Cerrejón, Latin America’s largest open-pit coal mine, which is owned and operated by the UK-listed mining company Glencore. The vast mine, which is six times the size of Manchester, draws from the river and dumps wastewater back into it, according to the UN.

Part of an expanse known as the “mining corridor”, southern La Guajira is a desert region where rainfall is scarce. It is also one of the country’s poorest areas. Local herding communities depend on rivers that flow down from nearby mountain ranges and supply most of the region’s water.

The Ranchería is one of them – but people stopped using it when they began to suffer skin diseases, which they attribute to dust from Cerrejón. Although the river passes a few metres from their homes, they are now forced to drill deep wells, which yield brackish water suitable only for animals, or else buy water supplied by tanker trucks.

It is among the many harmful effects of Glencore’s Cerrejón mine, which has long been linked to environmental controversies. But Glencore still raises huge sums of money with the help of international banks.

These include HSBC, which the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) can reveal helped the company raise a billion dollars in 2023 despite having pledged to restrict finance for companies expanding coal production.

Water diversion

Accounts such as Grismaldo’s have become increasingly familiar: Cerrejón’s effects on the local water supply have been the subject of legal disputes going back years.

In 2014, the government authorised Cerrejón – then owned by a Glencore subsidiary, BHP Billiton, and Anglo American – to divert both the Ranchería and the Bruno, a small tributary that also provided drinking water to nearby communities.

Wayúu leader Misael Socarrás opposed the move and together with other Indigenous organisations and non-governmental groups, he took Glencore to court. He says the Bruno is not the only stream to be affected. The communities of La Guajira verified the disappearance or reduction in size of more than 17 streams that are vital to water access.

In 2017, one of Colombia’s highest courts ruled in favour of the communities and ordered that work be stopped on the Bruno stream – although by that stage it had already been diverted.

Wayúu leader Leobaldo Sierra says the Bruno’s diversion has impeded planting, hunting and fishing for the members of his El Rocío community, which is based near the source of the stream.

Glencore told TBIJ that it engages “meaningfully” and “respectfully” with local communities, in accordance with Colombian law, and that Cerrejón has an environmental management plan that seeks to identify, prevent, mitigate and compensate for the impacts caused by its operations.

The company said its activities do not negatively affect the Ranchería river’s water quality or volumes, which it says it tests and finds to be within regulatory limits for domestic consumption, and that the flow rate increases as it passes through the Cerrejón mine. It said it used minimal amounts of water from the river compared to industries such as agriculture, which consumes the overwhelming majority.

It added that the Bruno creek is a seasonal stream that downstream communities continue to use, and that it has only intervened in four streams, as approved by environmental authorities.

But for Sierra and Socarrás, the damage has been done. “They cut off our spirituality, they cut off our means of living well, in harmony with nature,” says Sierra. “The territory here is a single entity … The cultural and spiritual vision is different from the business vision.”

Legal challenges

At least 12 communities near the mine have filed lawsuits in Colombian courts to force Glencore to address its environmental and health harms, according to CAJAR, a lawyers’ group that has represented several of them. However, CAJAR says many court orders, such as ensuring communities’ access to drinking water, have not been fully complied with.

In one case, sisters Mary Luz Uriana Ipuana and Yasmina Uriana sued the company, claiming one of the Cerrejón pits was affecting the health of Yasmina's 18-month-old.

In its ruling two years later, the Colombian supreme court cited scientific studies that detected high concentrations of toxic elements related to coal burning and particulate matter in the air near mining sites.

It rejected the company’s claim that health problems in Indigenous communities were due to unpaved roads and cooking with firewood. Cerrejón (then owned by BHP Billiton, AngloAmerican and Glencore) was ordered to prioritise the safety of Indigenous communities and to guarantee adequate environmental and health conditions. The company was also ordered to implement air and water quality controls, reduce dust and noise pollution, and prevent fires in the vicinity of the reserve.

After winning the lawsuit, the community was provided with a health centre and a fortnightly delivery of drinking water, which they say have improved their quality of life. However, the harm caused by 30 years of mining remains deeply felt.

“When we talk about damage to mother earth, to mother nature, that damage cannot be repaired, it cannot be compensated, because these harms will not be fixed overnight,” says María Cristina Figueroa, a local leader.

Glencore said it respects all judicial rulings and complies with them in full, including those that require it to carry out additional consultations with communities and further mitigate Cerrejón’s impacts. The rulings also include one that orders it stop mining in the area around the Bruno creek, the company added.

Paying the cost

A few kilometres south, María Mercedes, a Wayúu midwife, lives in another reserve located a stone’s throw from both the Cerrejón entrance gates and the Ranchería river. In the courtyards of the houses are the water tanks that are delivered every week – especially important here because the dust thrown up by the mine settles on roofs, preventing rainwater collection.

“Two thousand litres [of water] cost us 50,000 pesos (£10),” explains María. It’s an expense difficult to afford for a community where men earn barely 10,000 pesos a day working at the brickworks.

Glencore said that it monitors dust pollution and takes steps to minimise it, and that it voluntarily delivers water to numerous communities throughout the year at no cost to them.

Yudi Amaya Pushaina, María’s daughter and one of the leaders of this reserve, also faces threats because of her activism. When part of the community reached a financial agreement with Cerrejón to build an aqueduct system, Yudi Amaya says she and her neighbours were cheated.

“We don’t feel that the compensation they gave to the community makes up for the damage that Cerrejón has done to us as a reserve,” says Yudi Amaya.

Days after being interviewed for this story, her sister Elida died from complications relating to stomach and lung cancer. “Supposedly from smoking and cooking with firewood,” a furious Yudi Amaya told TBIJ via text message.

• This article was updated on 1 May 2025 to attribute a claim to the UN, as well as to include details provided by Glencore about its water testing and consumption.