This paper addresses the discursive treatment of glaciers in the binational Pascua Lama mining project (Chile-Argentina), which since 2000 has undergone two environmental assessment processes in Chile. The article analyses the enunciative deployment around the glaciers, which responds to the Chilean “environmental institutionality”. The objective is to give an account of the discursive practices of the State, and the main effects of the environmental evaluation processes. The first process corresponds to the identification and “discovery” of the glaciers, while the second addresses the magnitude of these water bodies and the possibility of developing a “management plan”. Finally, the paper focuses on the evolution of the glacier question in Chile and the exercise of power by the environmental institutions, which allowed the approval of the project without sufficient clarification regarding its potential impact on these ecosystems.