The Fundão Dam Failure

The mud painted the entire Rio Doce Basin brown, all the way to the point where the mud flowed into the Atlantic Ocean at Regência beach, located in the municipality of Linhares, in state of Espírito Santo.

In its sixteen-day journey to the ocean, the tailings affected dozens of municipalities and hundreds of communities, including the city of Governador Valadares, with more than 280,000 inhabitants, which relied exclusively on the Rio Doce for its drinking water.

Consequently, the arrival of the mud interrupted supply services and subsistence-related activities such as agriculture, livestock husbandry and fishing.

The failure of the Fundão dam, which belongs to Samarco, caused one of the biggest environmental disasters in the history of Brazil.

"We were first impacted when we saw the rise in fish mortality and changes in the water. That's when we knew the river was dead."

Jadilson Lino de Oliveira, architect, and member of the quilombola commission of Degredo

An event of this scale required an efficient and quick response. 

After an initial analysis of the disaster situation and once emergency measures had been put in place, an out-of-court agreement was signed between the mining companies responsible for the dam and the Federal and state governments.

The decision established a transition governance system, which led to the creation of the Renova Foundation, the Inter-Federative Committee (CIF), and other bodies involved in reparation management. 

As a non-profit entity financed by Samarco and its parent companies, the Renova Foundation is responsible for implementing the 42 programmes outlined in the Terms of Transaction and Conduct Adjustment (TTAC) for recovering the Rio Doce Basin and the livelihoods of local populations. The CIF, in turn, oversees and guides Renova's actions.

The programmes operate in accordance with three thematic axes: people and communities, land and water, reconstruction and infrastructure.

In 2016, with the restoration process beginning to move forward, BHP - one of Samarco's parent companies - sought external, independent, and objective advice to monitor the implementation of the 42 programmes and recommend improvements and complementary actions for a more effective response.

The Rio Doce Panel is an independent and transparent advisory panel tasked with making recommendations that can help decision-making on controversial issues, with a view to the long-term recovery of the Rio Doce Basin landscape in a resilient and sustainable fashion.

Rio Doce Panel - A nature-based solutions approach at a landscape level 

Over its five years of operation, the Panel has visited disaster-affected areas, spoken to those affected, and met with decision-makers, scientists, and community representatives to understand the challenges involved in restoration.

Together, the experts have produced a series of recommendations aimed at improving restoration processes and the livelihoods of affected populations. Some of these recommendations were heeded by the Renova Foundation, in accordance with the scope of its operations. Others were rejected or depend on external stakeholders for effective implementation.

The Panel set its priority action areas based on an analysis of scientific studies and technical documents produced in the context of the restoration. These include a comprehensive assessment of the impacts caused by the disaster and adaptive and risk reduction measures.

Addressing the impacts accrued over time in the Rio Doce watershed and coastal zone requires more than successfully rehabilitating them. Actions by governments, citizens and private organisations are essential to solving known problems. Furthermore, positive results must be maintained and improved beyond the Panel and after the Renova Foundation is no longer there.

Yolanda Kakabadse, Chair of the Rio Doce Panel

 

Visits to affected areas, the analysis of publicly available data, and the testimonials of those impacted helped the Panel gain a deeper understanding of the situation in the basin in the wake of the disaster. 

In some cases, however, there are knowledge gaps about ecological conditions in the basin prior to the dam failure. 

Centuries of economic activities and development in the region have caused a multitude of problems that undermine the basin's environmental health. Soil degradation and lack of adequate treatment of domestic and industrial sewage are some of the issues that affected the basin long before the disaster.

Given this context, the Rio Doce Panel recommended that restoration measures be based on the methodological principles of an environmental impact assessment, which enables the identification, description and classification of each of the effects of the Fundão dam failure.

What is an environmental impact assessment, by Yolanda Kakabadse 

Missing baselines for certain aspects of the basin's environmental health make it difficult to diagnose the impacts caused by the mud and decide which actions to take.

Therefore, ideally, the assessment should provide accurate pre-failure indicators for each component under analysis. This would enable a comparison with the data collected after the disaster. In their absence, efforts should be made to establish guidelines for the desired scenario.

The Panel also suggests that its findings be disseminated to all stakeholders involved to increase the reach of the information. This and other recommendations are detailed in the 2018 Thematic Report entitled Impacts of the Fundão Dam Failure.

Impact assessment in the context of the dam failure 

The Renova Foundation then requested practical guidance on how to collect data for the impact assessment.

The answer came in an Issue Paper entitled A framework for assessing environmental and social impacts of disasters - Ensuring effective mitigation after the Fundão Dam failure. 

The paper proposes a structured model, presented in a matrix format, to facilitate the gathering and analysis of information. It can also be used to assess similar environmental disasters.

Following a recommendation by the Panel, the Renova Foundation created an internal Impact Curatorship area devoted to impact evaluation.

With support from independent consultants, the Renova Foundation also developed a method for compiling and organising technical reports, which led to the new actions being proposed. Some have already been implemented and are yielding results.

Participatory workshops, for example, have allowed affected communities to collaborate with technical teams to understand the situation of the basin. The information collected can guide more effective mitigation actions for the restoration of affected ecosystems.

Specific impact evaluations focused on specific programme components enabled an analysis of the effects of the disaster on endangered species and the consequences of tourism on coastal zones.

It is only natural - and expected - that the 42 programmes generate precious information that can then be used to guide actions and adjustments. 

The Rio Doce Panel recommends conducting an integrated analysis of these programmes to find and explore any interconnections between them. 

In doing so, it would be possible to understand, for example, how forest restoration and spring recovery work has helped in the resumption of agricultural production on farms affected by the disaster. 

It is essential that stakeholders be heard when this analysis is conducted. Programmes meant to resume fishing and conserve aquatic biodiversity must consult with fishermen, riverside communities, and all those whose livelihoods depend on the river. 

Programmes focused on health monitoring need to include data brought in by affected populations, such as perceived adverse effects from potential contact with tailings, as well as indirect effects on the mental health of these populations.

However, the outcomes of these actions are still viewed in a fragmented way and the suggested indicators have not been fully incorporated into the analyses.

The Rio Doce Panel also calls attention to external elements that can amplify the degradation of the Rio Doce Basin:

Measures must be put in place to avoid these risks, such as increased investment in threatened areas and the enactment of public policies - such as climate change action plans - at the state and municipal levels.

The Rio Doce Panel has produced 4 Thematic Reports and 5 Issue Papers since 2017, in which it delves into various aspects of the basin's recovery and issues new recommendations.

In 2021, a new report was requested to provide a methodology for assessing impacts on coastal and marine areas affected by the disaster.

A series of workshops and presentations were led by the Panel in preparation for the report, bringing together technical personnel from the Renova Foundation and CT-Bio, representatives from Vale and experts from the Brazilian Foundation for Sustainable Development (FBDS, Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável). 

Partial results were presented in a webinar and at the international conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment, IAIA ' 22.

The findings can be used to evaluate and propose continuous improvements to the Aquatic Biodiversity Monitoring Programme (PMBA, Programa de Monitoramento da Biodiversidade Aquática), which provides important data for biodiversity conservation actions in the region.

The final output was a collaboratively built methodology presented in a new Thematic Report released by the Rio Doce Panel in November.

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