Research Paper Samarco Dam Collapse

Christopher Colas
Pacific Oaks College
Nearly a year had gone by since the 2016 collapse of the Samarco Dam collapsed into the

Brazilian Gualaxo do Norte river, and yet the water still runs blood red. At approximately 3 p.m.

on November 5th the Brazilian mining Samarcos dam collapsed, creating a tsunami releasing up

to 40m cubic meters of waste into the Gualaxo do Norte river and onto the Brazilian country side

filled with beautiful green landscapes and lush farmland. The waste consisting of sand and clay

flowed more than 600 kilometers over 16 days all the way to the ocean, leaving in its path 19

dead, villages destroyed resulting in hundreds of people homeless, and killed acres and acres of

wildlife as well as killing all the fish and aquatic life in its path. Considered to be the worst

environmental disaster in Brazilian recent history biologists say that the water contamination will

take decades to dilute to the previous water conditions, this has brought on catastrophic effects

on wildlife, marine life, and farming and it will affect the entire country.

The damage that this disaster has caused is irreversible, its obvious damage to the landscape and

the wildlife is not the only damage, several Brazilian endangered species have also become

victim of the samarco dam, such as the Leatherback turtle. The river of waste also affected

Risoleta power plant all the way in Neves. The plant had to shut down due to malfunctions

brought on by the spill.

On November 22nd, two weeks after the incident the waste reached the Atlantic Ocean it spread

all the way across to the Espirito Santo coast causing several beach cities to be closed down. The

city of Governador Valadares was forced to stop the water intakes due to catastrophic mud

deposits on the Rio Doce, causing the government to declare a state of public calamity in

response to the water shortage in the city that the collapse caused. the analysis of the md showed

heavy concentrations of heavy metals, with substances that can cause serious health issues such
as arsenic, lead and mercury. Once the wave hit the Abrolhos Marine National park wildlife and

marine biologists became overly concerned due to its vital importance to the Brazilian ecosystem

as host of the major marine biodiversity in the whole southern Atlantic Ocean. The river affected

is one of the world’s 34 hotspots for biodiversity conservation, this is because of its high levels

of endemism and anthropogenic alteration, that’s not even close to the amount of the adjacent

wilderness surrounding the river which is classified as very high in importance to biologists for

marine conservation. The destruction of the river of waste was immense in these areas as well. It

buried aquatic and riparian nursery habitats, ruining any chances for aquatic and terrestrial

ecosystems to regenerate. The loss of ecology and its memory that lays beneath the thick muddy

remains will extend regeneration and ecological function time of Brazils biophysical atmosphere

for decades close to a century.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1679007316301104

I believe that many measures could have been taken to prevent this disaster from

happening. In fact so does the government of Brazil. Samarcos activities were immediately
suspended after the disaster. Given their responsibility for the event and clear evidence of faulty

occurrences. The Brazilian government followed up by fining Samarco sixty-six million dollars

not including the penalties is the company was found guilty of water pollution damage. By the

end of January, the Samarco mining company has been ordered to pay four point eight billion

dollars in fines and damages and this does not include compensation to the people affected by the

disaster or the cost of the polluted area recovery. In October homicide charges were filed against

21 people including to executives of the mining companies in charge of the Samarco incident

Vale and BHP Billiton.

The unfortunate events seem to have been preventable but unfortunately due to human

carelessness and greed thousands among thousands of people, animals, and acres of land have

been affected. As I learned about water contaminates and how to treat them I wondered if a water

treatment would even be affective in this kind of catastrophic event. Would aeration be effective

with water that has become so muddy that you can’t even tell its water anymore. Coagulation

would be difficult not to mention filtration, I can only imagine the size of the water treatment

facility needed to successfully go about such a monumental task. There isn’t even enough man

power or resources to assess the damages areas let alone start a decontamination effort.

Biologists say that the consequences of this disaster will last decades. Unfortunately, due to the

scale of this spill cleanup has been very slow the sludge has taken over the river and its waters

are still running red. I have looked all through the labs and our book and my first instinct would

be to run the water through a decontamination plant putting it through the stages of

decontamination aeration, coagulation, or flocculation, sedimentation, and filtration. But at a

level this large I wouldn’t even know where to begin. with the amount of devastation to the water
supply. If I had to rely on anything it would be the earth’s natural water cycle, therefore

biologists predict an effort that will last more than several decades to eradicate. That’s not even

mentioning the devastation to plant life surrounding the area as well as animal and people’s

deaths. The

unfortunate surroundings of this event have greatly affected brazils ecosystem and natural life.

Hopefully with science and today’s technology they will be able to relieve the stress it has put on

the environment and prevent future occurrences such as these.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Bento_Rodrigues
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References:

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waste dam collapse to Brazilian marine fauna - an example from the staurozoans
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date=2016-06-01&rft.issn=1676-0611&rft.eissn=1676-
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2. Lia Timson and Peter Ker, (2016): Sunday explainer: 'Now the river is dead' – BHP's
mud disaster. http://www.smh.com.au/world/sunday-explainer-now-the-river-is-dead--
bhps-mud-disaster-20151127-gla1l0.html
3. Evolutionary Ecology & Biodiversity, Department of General Biology, Universidad de
Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, (2016) Deep into the
mud: ecological and socio-economic impacts of the dam breach in Mariana, Brazil.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1679007316301104
4. Dom Phillips, (2016) Samarco dam collapse: one year on from Brazil's worst
environmental disaster. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-
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billiton-vale-mining
5. Wikipedia, (2016) Bento Rodrigues dam disaster.
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6. EScience labs, (2016), Lab number 10 Water Quality and Contamination.
http://esciencelabs.com/