Gov’t imposes precaution measures for dams across Brazil

At the recommendation of Brazil’s National Mining Agency (ANM), the country’s Ministry of Mines and Energy introduced anti-accident measures at the approximately 1 thousand dams across the country, starting this year and effective up to 2021. The move includes the abolition or transformation of all of the so-called upstream dams by August 15, 2021.

Brazil has 84 upstream dams in operation, of which 43 are classified under “high potential risk,” i.e. high risk of collapse, with human lives under threat and potential economic and environmental loss - Antonio Cruz/ Agência Brasil

The measures outline the differences between tailings dams. The ones targeted by the move are classified as upstream, and have contention walls supported by previously deposited mining waste.

The agency’s board will assess the enforcement of the measures in three months.

Risks

Brazil has 84 upstream dams in operation, of which 43 are classified under “high potential risk,” i.e. high risk of collapse, with human lives under threat and potential economic and environmental loss. However, the total number of dams regarded as facing high potential risk adds up to 218.

The decision comes less than a month after the disaster in Brumadinho, just outside state capital Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, which took the lives of 169 people and left 141 missing following the rupture of the dam at the Córrego Feijão mine.

History of disasters

The decision mentions a track history of recent mining dam breaks, like the B1 dam at the Retiro do Sapecado mine, on September 10, 2014, in Itabirito, Minas Gerais.

Reference is also made to the Fundão da Mina Germano dam, which ruptured on November 5, 2015, in Mariana, Minas Gerais, and the B1 dam, at the Córrego do Feijão mine, on January 25, in Brumadinho, also in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

“All recent collapse incidents involved upstream dams, whose efficiency and safety are disputable,” the text reads.