Federal court suspends Sigma Mineração's environmental licenses and halts Grota do Cirilo lithium project

The federal court ordered the suspension of all environmental licenses of Sigma Mineração SA, an operational subsidiary of Sigma Lithium Corp., and the complete stoppage of mining activities at the Grota do Cirilo lithium project.

The Federation of Quilombola Communities of the State of Minas Gerais requested the urgent injunction, alleging that the mining company exaggerated the distance between the project and the traditional territory of the Quilombola Community of Baú.

The company's Grota do Cirilo complex, located in a region known as Brazil's Lithium Valley, is one of the largest hard rock lithium deposits in the world and includes an adjacent processing plant.

The emergency injunction issued on Friday (4) states that the mining project is located in the area of ​​direct influence of the community and, therefore, requires environmental impact studies dedicated exclusively to traditional Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombolas.

According to the decision, Sigma stated that the project is outside the presumed impact zone of 8 kilometers, defended the legality of the state licensing and maintained that the absence of definitive property titles prevents the application of the community protection procedure.

Judge Antonio Lucio de Oliveira Barbosa, from TRF-6 (Federal Region Court of the 6th Region), determined that "the risk of damage arises from the fact that the mining complex operates continuously, extracting resources and carrying out constant detonations and earth movements a few kilometers from the traditional territory".

He also ordered environmental agencies in the state of Minas Gerais to refrain from issuing new environmental licenses to the company.

Sigma Lithium had to interrupt its operations in July, when the local environmental authority decreed an embargo on the Grota do Cirilo project, in the cities of Araçuaí and Itinga, after an inspection carried out at the end of May found irregularities. The company denied any irregularities and resumed industrial and mining activities last month, after signing an agreement with the state of Minas Gerais.

Sigma did not respond to a request for comment made this Saturday (5).