This seven million tonne gold heap leach is located at an altitude of 4600 meters (15,000 feet) in northern Chile. Through its associated company, Decommissioning Services LLC, KCA provided engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM), and then subsequently entered into a 2-year contract to provide complete project operations management services.

​The heap was an accumulation of ore from an on-off heap leach formerly operated by a large international mining corporation, Billiton. Based on an evaluation of exploration drillholes into the heap, KCA was able to show that washing would mitigate an environmental problem (high residual cyanide) and recover significant amounts of gold and silver. Under contract to the client, KCA designed and installed a stabilizing butress, a recovery plant, and a complete heap piping system. During three years of “washing”, precious metals production exceeded 30,000 ounces of gold, essentially in agreement with the projection made by KCA at the start of the project. The client realized an operating profit on this environmental cleanup project.