Brazil Dam's Failure Flooded Region With Toxic Waste, U.N. Report Says -- Update
November 25 2015 - 9:37PM
Dow Jones News
By Paul Kiernan
RIO DE JANEIRO--An avalanche of mud unleashed by a massive dam
failure in Brazil earlier this month contained "high levels of
toxic heavy metals and other toxic chemicals," a pair of United
Nations experts said Wednesday.
Special rapporteurs John Knox and Baskut Tuncak cited "new
evidence" showing the presence of toxic waste in the mud, which
swallowed entire communities and polluted hundreds of miles of
waterways in southeast Brazil. Their findings contradicted repeated
statements by the Brazilian government and the mining companies
responsible for the dam that the chemicals released by the accident
were harmless.
"This is not the time for defensive posturing," Messrs. Knox and
Tuncak said in a joint statement published to the website of the
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"It is not acceptable that it has taken three weeks for information
about the toxic risks of the mining disaster to surface."
The failure occurred at an earthen dam operated by Samarco
Mineração SA, a joint venture between global mining giants Vale SA
and BHP Billiton Ltd. The dam held back some 55 million cubic
meters of tailings, waste from Samarco and Vale's nearby iron-ore
mines.
As many as 12 people died when the sludge inundated towns in the
area. At least 11 people are still missing.
All three companies have said the tailings are harmless and
consist mostly of mud and sand.
Based on the available data, the tailings released by the dam
were "chemically stable" and would behave like normal soils in the
area, BHP said in a statement late Wednesday.
"The tailings that entered the Rio Doce were comprised of clay
and silt material from the washing and processing of earth
containing iron ore, which is naturally abundant in the region,"
BHP said.
A spokeswoman for Samarco, in an emailed statement, reiterated
that the tailings from its dam consist "basically" of water,
iron-ore particles and quartz. New analyses that the company
requested, she said, "attest that the material analyzed does not
present a danger to human health."
"The company respects the U.N.'s right to expression," the
Samarco spokeswoman said.
A Vale spokeswoman deferred to Samarco for comment.
The U.N. special rapporteurs received their information from the
town of Baixo Guandu's water department, which hired local
laboratory Tommasi to analyze samples taken at three points along
the Rio Doce, the main river in the region.
One of the samples, taken in the industrial city of Governador
Valadares, showed levels of arsenic, manganese and other metals at
several thousand times the acceptable maximums.
"I find it difficult to imagine that you would see such high,
elevated levels normally--in a region where people are eating fish
and drinking the water--and not have major impacts on human health
or the environment, " Mr. Tuncak said in a phone interview.
The Brazilian government said on Nov. 19 that samples collected
by the Geological Service of Brazil and the National Water Agency
"indicated that there was not an increase in the presence of heavy
metals in the water and sediments of the Rio Doce."
Nevertheless, authorities cut off water supplies for hundreds of
thousands of people along the river as the mud snaked downstream.
Reports of major wildlife die-offs emerged in its wake, with news
teams and local residents alike publishing videos of mud-coated
fish agonizing in the river's reddened waters.
The plume arrived at the Atlantic Ocean over the weekend,
roughly 500 miles from Samarco's dam.
Samarco, Vale, BHP Billiton and Brazilian authorities have come
under fire for their handling of the incident. Residents of Bento
Rodrigues, a village just below the dam system, said the mining
companies had no alarm system set up to alert them when the dam
failed. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff didn't visit the scene
until a week later.
"This disaster serves as yet another tragic example of the
failure of businesses to adequately conduct human-rights due
diligence to prevent human-rights abuses," the U.N. statement said
Wednesday.
Vale and BHP Billiton have denied responsibility for the
accident, saying Samarco is an independently run, limited liability
firm.
Rhiannon Hoyle in Sydney contributed to this article.
Write to Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 25, 2015 22:22 ET (03:22 GMT)
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