BRAZIL: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDIES FAIL TO STOP HARMFUL DAMS
Mario Osava
IPS - Inter Press Service
August 10, 2010
"It's a fait accompli," acknowledges Andre Villas-Boas, head of the
independent SocioEnvironmental Institute (ISA), resigned to the fact that
the legal actions and protests have failed to block the construction of
the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in Brazil's Amazon jungle region.
But the battles lost against megaprojects harmful to the environment and
to indigenous peoples and other local communities have not discouraged
activists from mobilising.
However, they have made social organisations and experts question the
government's decision-making mechanisms when it comes to mega-projects
like dams.
An environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been required in Brazil since
1986 for any project with potentially harmful effects on wildlife and
local populations -- a requirement that was incorporated into the
constitution in 1988.
The aim was to prevent a repeat of disastrous infrastructure projects like
the Balbina hydropower dam in the northern state of Amazonas. In that
case, 2,600 square kilometres of rainforest were flooded in exchange for a
small amount of energy and a high level of greenhouse gas emissions.
But the progress represented by the requirement of an EIA has fallen short
of the expectations of environmental and social movements, because the
studies have rarely led to a decision by the authorities not to approve a
project.
At the most, the environmental permits are made conditional on measures to
mitigate and compensate damages.
Hermes de Medeiros, a biology professor at the Federal University of Par ,
told IPS that the Belo Monte EIA "illegally" failed to mention the impacts
of parts of the project, such as the sluices and the deepening of the
Xingu river on a 50-km stretch downstream.
De Medeiros is one of 40 academics and experts who carried out a critical
analysis of the 20,000-page EIA, identifying serious shortcomings and
errors.
The Belo Monte hydroelectric station, which is to come on stream in 2015,
will be the world's third largest hydroelectric dam, after Three Gorges in
China and Itaip� on the border between Brazil and Paraguay.
Experts point out that EIAs have a built-in weakness: they are the
responsibility of the company itself, although it must hire a firm that
specialises in conducting such studies.
The state electric company Eletronorte first began to design the Belo
Monte dam, which will harness the Xingu river in the state of Par , 35
years ago.
It commissioned Leme Ingenieria, one of the biggest energy consultants in
Latin America, to carry out the EIA.
Leme Ingenieria belongs to Suez-Tractebel, Belgium's top utility holding
company, which forms part of the French energy conglomerate GDF Suez. Both
Suez-Tractebel and Suez GDF have major energy assets in Brazil.
GDF Suez also leads the consortium that is building the Jirau dam on
another Amazon jungle river, the Madeira river, and had hoped to become a
partner in the Belo Monte dam.
The incestuous relationship between the companies that carry out the EIAs
and the firms that commission them undermine the credibility of the
process, Villas-Boas and de Medeiros argue.
They also question the validity and effectiveness of the environmental
permits granted by the authorities, based on the EIAs, since the
government itself is the driving force behind projects like hydroelectric
dams in the Amazon rainforest.
The subordination of environmental concerns to the government's economic
and political interests has been especially obvious in the case of the
Belo Monte dam, experts and activists say.
The government has used every means within its reach to push through the
enormous project, which has top priority status in its "growth
acceleration programme" (PAC), the centerpiece of President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva's economic policy.
Dilma Rousseff, Lula's former energy minister and his candidate in the
October presidential elections, played a key role in designing the PAC.
Three state-run power companies and public pension funds were urged to
build a consortium to take part in the bidding for the project, which they
won.
The federal development bank, BNDES, is financing 80 percent of the
project, which will nominally be under private control in order to
facilitate its administration.
Only "the constant action of the strong hand of government" will make the
hydroelectric plant possible, admits Mauricio Tolmasquim, president of the
Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica, the government's energy research and
planning bureau.
But the Belo Monte dam is not only opposed by environmentalists,
indigenous groups and social activists.
Experts and business representatives in the energy industry have also
questioned the economic viability of the undertaking. They estimate that
its actual cost will be 60 percent higher than its budget of 10.8 billion
dollars, and that it will only operate at 40 percent of its installed
capacity, due to the drop in the flow of water in the Xingu river during
the dry season.
To remove the obstacles threatening the project, the government had no
qualms about interfering with the judiciary, the activists and experts
say.
Judge Antonio Carlos Campelo was removed from the case by judicial reforms
in the state of Par , after he tried to suspend the bidding for Belo Monte
three times in April, in rulings that were overturned by a court in the
capital, Brasilia.
In June, the reforms removed environmental and agricultural questions from
the jurisdiction of Altamira, the municipality most directly affected by
the project, transferring them to a court recently established in Belem,
the state capital.
The attorney general's office also threatened legal action against
prosecutors who have attempted to block the project.
The public prosecutor's office reacted by reasserting its independence and
its defence of the country's laws, but the pressure had already been felt.
Earlier, in February, IBAMA, Brazil's environmental enforcement agency,
was forced to speed up approval of the project, after experts opposed to
the dam were silenced and two directors responsible for the Belo Monte
case were sacked.
IBAMA itself was suddenly split in two in 2007, in response to government
and business pressure to authorise the construction of two hydroelectric
dams on the Madeira river.
Former environment minister Marina Silva, who was behind the
restructuring, resigned 11 months later, complaining about "resistance" to
her environmental policies by factions in the government. She is now the
Green Party's presidential candidate.
In the meantime, the government is trying to win local public support for
the project. It has announced record amounts of spending in the affected
municipalities, the resettlement of the families in the areas to be
flooded, and the paving of the Trans-Amazonian highway, which is key to
connecting the area to the rest of Brazil, as the road is now impassable
during the rainy season.
The promises of benefits have divided local indigenous communities, said
Jose Carlos Arara, a leader of the Arara Indians who is opposed to the dam
because it will divert part of the waters of the Xingu river, reducing the
flow of water in the area where his people live, the Volta Grande do Xingu
(the Great Bend of the Xingu), thus undermining their way of life, which
depends on fishing and river transport.
Some indigenous people who are "heavily dependent on the state and its
welfare measures feel they are unable to survive without the state," said
Villas-Boas.
A large part of the population of the city of Altamira backs the dam
because it will generate employment to replace the jobs lost since the
environmental authorities started clamping down on illegal logging.
(SIDEBAR) Hoping for a job Marinaldo Rodrigues, who lost his job of eight
years in an Altamira sawmill when it was shut down in 2002 for operating
illegally, hopes to find work on the dam.
It is widely believed that the crackdown on illegal logging in the
Brazilian Amazon began after the 2005 murder of U.S. nun Dorothy Stang,
who spent more than 30 years fighting for the land rights of the poor,
near the city of Altamira in Par state. But Rodrigues told IPS that the
government's efforts to curb the illegal clearing of the jungle had
already been stepped up before the high-profile murder.
Since then, environmental authorities have closed down 10 of the 12
sawmills that processed wood in Altamira. As a result, some 5,000 people
lost their jobs -- a major blow in a city of 100,000 people where formal
sector work is hard to come by.
Most of the former sawmill workers turned to casual work in fishing and
agriculture, Rodrigues said.
Although the company where he used to work eventually reopened, he decided
on a change of track, and underwent training to drive the heavy machinery
used in building embankments.
Although he worked for four different companies, the father of two is once
again unemployed at the age of 37. But he hopes to find work in the paving
of the Trans-Amazonian highway, a project that is just getting underway.
And with his training and experience, he is confident that he will find a
steady job when work begins on the Belo Monte hydropower project, which
will include two large dams and two canals entailing the removal of a
similar amount of earth and rocks as the Panama canal.
As a result, it is not surprising that Rodrigues supports the project,
even though the area where his home is located will be flooded by the
waters of the Xingu river, as will the homes of all of his neighbours in
the low-lying portion of Altamira, once the dams are built.
Copyright 2010 IPS - Inter Press Service/Global Information Network
IPS - Inter Press Service
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