I agree the $4M fine is nothing, but I disagree with your other points.

I work in the environment field federally in Canada and have done work in Chile with federal and academic counterparts. What changed recently was the formation of a federal Chilean environment ministry. Now they have certainly been disorganized but new legislation that gave rise to this ministry also gave the folks living up in the Andes a voice for the first time. And they have been beating a drum ever since.

I don't know the details of this package of violations here but my spanish is good enough to read the Chilean news and ascertain there were 26 separate components to what just got delivered to Teck. It may be that they are easily resolveable. It may not, no idea.

What I do know is that it won't matter how big or well organized a company is if their permit gets revoked. The mine would have to shut down until the violations were resolved. The sheer cost of that I expect motivates Teck far more than any fine that could be brought to bear.

I agree, Teck is a good company and will take all of this as it should. Hell, I own tck.b shares that I had been hoping would pop upon a Schaft Creek announcement. My point is that the landscape has shifted dramatically in Chile and the cost of doing business there has concurrently gone up. The importance of CUU's relationship with the Tahltan cannot be understated and the importance of both environment and relations with aboriginals with a new voice in Chile cannot be underestimated now either. This, coupled with a critical shortage of electrical infrastructure in Chile, and the return of the leftist Bachelet government make for a less-than-certain future for mining there.

K