PRESS RELEASE
Under the makeup: Hydro creating unfeasible societies in the Brazilian Amazon
Contamination, colossal use of water, violation of indigenous rights and heavy climate footprint in Hydro’s bauxite and alumina production in Pará state challenge the green ambitions of the Norwegian company in Brazil
The comeback of the popular 1980’s Norwegian band A-ha to a Brazilian tour has been celebrated among thousands of fans in Brazil. Their major appearance in the Rock in Rio festival a couple of days ago was considered a nostalgic comeback of the new wave combined with fresh new songs, demonstrating their ability to renew. Their last published hit from July 2015, “Under the Makeup” closed the concert yesterday above expectations.
This Thursday (01/10/15), after having played in Rio and other major cities in Brazil, A-ha landed in a small village in the middle of the Amazon called Barcarena. The band played a half-closed concert to Norsk Hydro’s employees and invitees, celebrating the company’s 100 years as an aluminum company.
Norsk Hydro has been inspired by A-ha’s ability to renew, promising “infinite aluminium” and a mission to create “a more viable society”. According to the company, Hydro and A-ha are “good old examples” of everything that can “recirculate and be given new and eternal life. Not unlike the properties of aluminium”.
However, this eternal shiny green varnish is quickly washed away by reality in Barcarena. Despite having a GNP per capita of 75% of that of São Paulo, largest financial hub in Latin America, Barcarena is the antithesis of development: 30% of population is currently living under the poverty line, only 14,9% of households have basic sanitation, violence and prostitution is the scenario outside the walls of Hydro’s industrial plants Alunorte and Albras.
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Red mud spill contaminated water and soil in Barcarena
The red mud, solid waste resulting from the transformation of bauxite in alumina, is hazardous for being highly caustic. Hydro’s Alunorte plant, the largest alumina producer in the world, is estimated to have produced around 2,9 million tons of red mud only in 2014. The mud is disposed in several open artificial pools around the Alunorte plant, in Barcarena.
In April 2009, heavy rains flooded the red mud pools of Alunorte, contaminating soil and the Murucupi river in Barcarena. Hydro’s Alunorte suffered penalties for environmental violations and was sued by six thousand people locally.
Hydro claims that nowadays it uses a method for treatment of red mud called dry stacking, whereby the mud is dried up and stacked in mounds, reducing risk of spills. However, plans for expansion of red mud pools are currently underway in Barcarena, causing social displacement of people with no formal land titles, and elimination of the rainforest around Barcarena.
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Hydro’s pipeline uses as much water as 60% of Oslo population
Hydro transports bauxite dissolved in water from the Paragominas mine to Alunorte, in Barcarena. The company uses a colossal amount of fresh water from private wells in Paragominas to dissolve the bauxite along a 244-kilometer pipeline crossing the rainforest and the territories of indigenous peoples and quilombo communities.
The water volume drained in the pipeline would suffice to quench the thirst of roughly 60% of the whole population of Oslo. Free of cost, since no water-use charges exist in Pará.
While Hydro richly washes away its bauxite, over 92% of Barcarena’s underground and surface waters are contaminated with soluble lead, aluminum and other heavy metals, and are unfit for human consumption.
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Hydro’s pipeline violates rights of quilombos and indigenous peoples
The pipeline crosses the territories of several indigenous and afro-descendant Quilombo communities living between Paragominas and Barcarena. Such communities have their land rights recognized by the Brazilian Federal Constitution and international treaties such as ILO 169 Convention, of which Brazil is signatory.
The servitude imposed to build the pipeline affected territorial rights of these communities. Right to prior consultation concerning compensation and remuneration for right of way was violated. The federal prosecutor filed a lawsuit to protect the rights of indigenous and quilombo communities against Hydro’s pipeline.
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Hydro’s carbon emissions in Brazil equals the emissions of the whole agriculture sector in Norway
Hydro wants to be carbon neutral in 2020. However, in 2014, the company’s emissions in Brazil alone were roughly the same for the whole agriculture sector in Norway, around 4,4 million ton CO² equivalent.
A-ha’s new hit could not illustrate better the situation of Hydro in Barcarena: I want to see you under the makeup:https://youtu.be/T4vtvjdMZsc
Contact:
Comitê em Defesa dos Territórios Frente à Mineração
The Committee in Defense of Territories Against Mining is a network of civil society organizations and social movements created in May 2013 to debate the new legal framework for mining in Brazil, currently under discussion in Congress. More than 150 social and environmental organizations and movements in defense of people affected by mining, indigenous peoples, quilombos and labor unions have united in a network that aims to include socio-environmental safeguards in the bill of law and to fight against violations of rights made by mining companies in Brazil.
emdefesadosterritorios@gmail.
