This essay examines the effects of copper mining on the environment and indigenous peoples of the Atacama Desert, Northern Chile. During the twentieth century, the American owned Anaconda Company increasingly captured water for copper production in Chuquicamata mine. The environmental impacts of water extraction had disastrous consequences on Atacameño people’s economy, which was based on animal herding and small-scale agriculture. Ironically, the history of mining development also reveals that Anaconda gave jobs to the natives to build and maintain the pipelines that took away their water. Today, Anaconda is remembered more for the jobs it gave than for the water it took.