The latest Brazil dam burst happened on Jan. 26 in the town of Brumadinho in the central state of Minas Gerais, less than a month after the country’s new climate-skeptic government came to office promising a relaxation of environmental laws and inspections to “take the yoke off producers.”
So sudden was the calamity that alarm sirens were submerged by the tidal wave of waste before they could sound. The avalanche of sludge then engulfed hundreds of people aboard buses and lorries or in buildings in its path.
The dam was built in the 1970s, using the “upstream construction” method since banned in other countries. It facilitated the rapid flow of the dam’s contents downhill when the walls collapsed.
The contents included toxic waste from a mine owned by Vale, a Brazilian company which is the world’s largest iron ore producer, and its second largest mining company.
As the death toll rose, so did questions about the failure to prevent Brazil’s second big mining disaster in three years. In November 2015, an iron ore tailings mine owned by Samarco, a Vale joint venture with the Anglo-Australian BHP, had burst its banks, causing Brazil’s worst-ever environmental disaster, contaminating hundreds of miles of rivers with toxic waste, killing fish and other wildlife.
Yet instead of tightening up environmental laws, politicians, many of them funded by the mining companies, have worked instead to relax them.
In the national congress there are a dozen bills designed to loosen the rules for environmental licenses. The same politicians also supported the election of a president who appointed climate skeptics to key ministries.
Climate change deleted
The issue of climate change was removed from the government’s agenda, and departments which addressed it have been abolished or downgraded. A determination to dismantle environmental safeguards and relax legislation seen as restrictive to business was openly expressed and was a key part of the new president’s platform.
On his first day in office, President Jair Bolsonaro signed an executive order creating a special secretariat for environmental licensing, a function previously performed by Ibama, the official environment agency, which has a staff of experienced inspectors. The idea was to fast-track the process.
Environment minister Ricardo Salles even suggested self-evaluation by companies or producers considered low-risk — the classification given to the dam at Brumadinho.
The disaster has also revealed that even before Bolsonaro’s election, mine inspections were being neglected. Brazil has 790 dams holding mine waste, but only 35 inspectors. In 2017 only 211 of these mines were inspected.
Inspections missed
Of the budget allocated for dam inspections, less than a quarter was actually spent, according to the Report on Dam Safety in 2017 produced by the National Water Agency, ANA.
Baskut Tuncak, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the disposal of hazardous substances, whose requests to visit Brazil after the previous disaster have been systematically ignored, said: “Brazil should have implemented measures to prevent the collapse of these mortal and catastrophic dams after the Samarco disaster in 2015.”
Monitoring of the dam, including the toxicity of the reject material, and the installation of early warning systems to prevent the loss of life and contamination of rivers should have been ensured, he said.
Tuncak, who is championing environmentally sound technologies that adapt to and mitigate climate change, called the dam burst at Brumadinho a crime.
Warnings ignored
He revealed that the Brazilian authorities had ignored U.N. warnings to improve environmental control. “Neither the government nor the Vale company seem to have learned from their errors and taken the necessary preventive measures after the Samarco disaster.”
For Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), one of Brazil’s most influential environmental NGOs, the blame lies with “a continuous process of disinvestment in the environmental agencies at both the national and the local level, leaving them unable to carry out their legal attributions.
“Besides imposing unacceptable risks on the environment and the population, this is bad for the companies themselves, because of the time taken to obtain licenses.”
The way to prevent new tragedies, says ISA, is to strengthen these agencies, not dismantle them. Maybe the terrible tragedy of Brumadinho, with almost 350 dead, will persuade President Bolsonaro to listen to what the environmentalists are saying.
This story previously ran on Climate News Network.
